Peaceful School Integration Comes to Jackson, Mississippi
Press Release
September 17, 1964

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Press Releases, Volume 1. Peaceful School Integration Comes to Jackson, Mississippi, 1964. 0aec5142-b592-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/ba006941-a08b-4c85-b0d7-2f2e5ff00e85/peaceful-school-integration-comes-to-jackson-mississippi. Accessed May 15, 2025.
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10 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10019 JUdson 6-8397 NAACP ; Legal Defense and Educational Fund PRESS RELEASE Allan Knight Chalmers September 17, 1964 PEACEFUL SCHOOL INTEGRATION COMES TO JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI JACKSON, Miss, --- Thirty-nine Negro children peacefully entered eight previously white elementary schools here this week =- in Jackson, stronghold of the White Citizens’ Councils, The youngsters, all first graders, gained admission under guidance of attorneys of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Failure of a white protest boycott to materialize, the positive suppot of segregationist hiayor Allan Thompson and the Jackson Chamber of Commerce were termed significant by Fund Assistant Counsel Derrick Bell, "Our success today (September 14th) is an important new development in the school integration posture of the Deep South," Mr, Bell, who worked with Fund cooperating attorneys R. Jess Brown and Jack Young, both of Jackson, added that "Mississippi Negro citizens are showing an awakened interest in the advantages of integrated education." Looking across the South, Attorney Bell stated that "on the whole, there has been more peaceful compliance this year---1964, than during any other since the 1954 decision." The Jackson school case, Mr, Bell pointed out, bears the name “Darrell Evers vs. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, et al." (more) Jesse DeVore, Jr., Director of Public Inf ‘ion—Night Number 212 Riverside 9-8487 es The family of the martyred Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP in iMississippi, has since moved to Claremont, California, However, Mrs. Myrlie Evers wired the Negro students congratulating them on the “historic integration of Jackson's public schools," "Darrell and Reene looked forward to joining their schoolmates," Mrs, Evers wired. "All Mississippi moved a little bit forward today and 39 Negro children are on their way to fuller participation in the mainstream of American life," she said. - 30 = ¥