Schools: It Pays to Desegregate

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act empowered the Government to stop aid to school administrations refusing to sign a desegregation pledge, many Southerners were talking as truculently as Louisiana Politician Leander Perez. "Our children are not for sale for any filthy, tainted federal bribes," he said. But the defiance will cost his Plaquemine Parish some $200,000 this year, and there are by now few other Southern areas willing to give up that kind of money. With the pledge deadline coming up on March 3, the rights act is rapidly imposing the desegregation that 75% of the South's school districts...

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