For 75 years, Illinois has had a law against segregation in public schools, but the city of Cairo (rhymes with faro) has never paid much attention. Cairo (pop. 12,400) happens to sit well below the Mason-Dixon line at the point where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet. To all intents and purposes, it is a Southern town, and its 4,000 Negroes and 8,000 whites live out their carefully segregated lives accordingly.
Negroes do not go to the Gem Theater, where the first-run films are shown. They do not eat in the white restaurants, or use the public library; and while the whites...
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