Twenty-five years ago, in Selma, Ala., club-wielding police attacked civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Now the city of 27,000 is again experiencing racial turmoil. Last week 150 black high school students boycotted classes to protest the school board's failure to renew the contract of black Superintendent Norward Roussell. Governor Guy Hunt ordered National Guardsmen to protect students who went to school despite the boycott.
In three years at the helm of the 70% black school system, Roussell alienated whites by, among other things, revising the "tracking" system that had long channeled black students into lower-level courses. After the...
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