Class is in Session: Integration and Busing Controversies, 1969-1972

Connecting the Docs: True Stories from the Old North State

Our final episode in our school-centric series takes us to Charlotte, home to one of the most famous legal cases involving school integration. By the time it reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Swann v. Mecklenburg addressed whether school systems could legally use busing routes to create more integrated school populations (or if they had an obligation to do just that). In this episode, join host John Horan, podcast Intern Olivia Coyne, and producer Josh Hager for a tour through the history of the Swann case and the larger issue of busing in North Carolina. Learn how school systems used busing to maintain segregation even after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. We’ll go over a chronology of the key events of the Swann case and its legal outcomes. Finally, we’ll dive deep into the correspondence of Governor Bob Scott to look at how citizens from across North Carolina argued for and against busing in both expected and wildly unexpected ways.

Special thanks to correspondence narrators Annabeth Poe, Madison Lawson, and Kaylin Preslar.

Collections Used for Research

Governor Robert Scott Papers:

• State Board of Education, School Buses, 1969 (Box 17)

• Alphabetical File, Education, 1969 (Boxes 115-116)

• State Board of Education, School Buses, 1970 (Box 158)

• Alphabetical File, Desegregation, 1970 (Box 270)

• Alphabetical File, Education (General), 1970 (Box 270)

• State Board of Education, Busing Children, 1971 (Box 303)

• Department of Public Instruction, State Board of Education, School Buses, Busing Children, 1972 (Box 463)

Department of Public Instruction, Superintendent’s Subject File. Mailing of Free Choice Forms, 1969; Statement of Dr. Craig Phillips, 1971; and Letters of Protest from Forsyth County, 1970. Item 1074, Transfer 3: Boxes 12, 16, and 25 (unprocessed).

Secondary historical information source: Robin Brabham, "Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education," North Carolina Encyclopedia (NCPedia), 2006. https://www.ncpedia.org/swann-v-charlotte-mecklenburg-board.

Commercial Excerpt from “An Interview with Lucy Penegar (b. 1940)” by Jason Luker at the Gaston County Museum of Art and History in Dallas, North Carolina on March 15, 2021. From the State Archives of North Carolina, She Changed the World Oral History Project. Audio. https://appx.archives.ncdcr.gov//solrDetailPages/series/NCA/Series_detail.html?fq=seriesRid:1155061.