STLToday.com

Home > Buy historic photos & newspaper pages
Look Back: St. Louis desegration
Date: 2/17/2010 Album ID: 946103
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Slideshow icon View Slideshow
Parents of five black public school students went to court on Feb. 17, 1972, alleging that their schools were inferior to those in white neighborhoods. Thus begat Liddell v. Board of Education
Students from Soldan High School who marched on April 3, 1980, to the old St. Louis Board of Education office, 911 Locust Street downtown, wait outside while their leaders meet with board officials inside. The 240 students who took part were worried that plans underway at the U.S. District Courthouse six blocks away on the city's desegregation program would lead to closing their school, at 918 Union Boulevard. The court case began on Feb. 17, 1972, when Minnie Liddell and other parents filed suit, alleging that the schools in black neighborhoods were inferior to those in the city's white-majority areas. U.S. District Judge James Meredith ruled in April 1979 that the racial makeups of city schools were the result of housing patterns, not school policy, and declined to order a cross-town busing plan, as Liddell and the NAACP had sought. But after the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals overturned his order on March 3, 1980, Meredith instructed the parties to prepare a plan. Closing or changing the programs at Soldan was one option under discussion when the students protested. On Sept. 3, 1980, when the city busing plan took effect, some former Soldan students were bused to Cleveland High School on the South Side, and some former Cleveland students were assigned to Soldan. (Scott Dine/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Some of the nearly 1,000 students who went downtown from Roosevelt, Soldan and O'Fallon Technical high schools take to the steps of the federal courthouse on May 3, 1980, to protest the deliberations underway inside before Judge Meredith. (Wayne Crosslin/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Parents gather in the auditorium at Soldan High School on July 10, 1980, to hear Soldan principal Harold Greer discuss plans for transferring some white students by bus to Soldan, at 918 Union Boulevard. About 60 parents and students, most of them white, attended the meeting. (Sam Leone/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Charles L. White (standing left), principal at Stevens School, 1033 Whittier Street, talks with two teachers on Aug. 13, 1980, about school assignments and other planning for the upcoming school year. The court plan was changing Stevens from an elementary to a middle school. It remains a middle school. Seated are teachers Garland Pack and Dorothy Capelton. (Larry Williams/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Parents and students who oppose the planned cross-town busing plan protest outside Soldan High School, 918 Union Boulevard, on Aug. 17, 1980. Soldan's student body the previous spring had been 99 percent black. Cleveland High School, at 4352 Louisiana Avenue, had been 96 percent white. The busing plan would send white students from Cleveland to Soldan, and blacks from Soldan and Vashon High School to Cleveland, for an intended enrollment at Cleveland that would be 57 percent white. Cleveland, later made into the junior navy ROTC academy, closed in 2006. (J.B. Forbes/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
The Argast family visits Soldan on Aug. 24, 1980, to consider letting their son attend under the busing plan that was to take effect in less than two weeks. They are speaking to Art Jackson, who opposed the cross-town transfer plan. (J.B. Forbes/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
The Argasts head inside Soldan to look around. (J.B. Forbes/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
A mother and her daughter walk over racist slurs that vandals spray-painted on the entrance of Cleveland High School. They are visiting the school on Aug. 24, 1980, to consider the school in the upcoming busing plan. (J.B. Forbes/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Bobbie Bradford and Al Robinson, both seniors at Cleveland High School, greet security guard Marsha Thomas upon their return to school on Sept. 3,1980. (Sam Leone/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Cleveland High principal Al Reinsch talks with a student who had taken a break from the first-day confusion inside by sitting on a bench across the street. After their chat, the student returned to the building. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Eula J. Flowers, principal at Patrick Henry Elementary School just north of downtown, greets white students on opening day. The children formerly had attended Lyon School in the south side's Carondelet neighborhood. (Robert C. Holt Jr./Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
White students at Cleveland High, and a few parents, standing outside the school on Sept. 12, 1980. About 200 students boycotted class that day over allegations that some black male students had harassed some white girls. Principal Al Reinsch met with representatives of the boycotting students, but didn't allow the group back into school that day. Reinsch also met with some of the parents. Said Reinsch, The beginning of any school year is difficult, and the additional complexity of desegregation has generated more uncertainty among students than usual. In some cases, emotion has taken over. (Ted Dargan/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Two Soldan High students, one white and the other black, say goodbye for the summer in June 1981, at the end of the first year of busing to achieve racial balance. (Scott Dine/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
A group of people who opposed U.S. District Judge William Hungate's regional school-busing plan gather at Kiener Plaza downtown on Oct. 4, 1983. They invited the judge, who didn't show up. On July of that year, Hungate had approved an agreement by the city schools and 23 suburban districts that allowed black city youths to attend schools in the county, and white suburban youths to attend city magnet schools. The program began with the start of classes in September. (Larry Williams/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Minnie Liddell, leader of the original parents group that filed suit in 1972, with her son, Craton, 37, and grandson Deric, 5 months, in March 1996. Craton Liddell was 12 when his name became the first on the list of plaintiffs in the lawsuit, thus making it Craton Liddell vs. Board of Education. His name would top thousands of filings in the long-running lawsuit, which led to both the city desegregation plan in 1983 and the city-county program three years later. (Karen Elshout/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Minnie Liddell sits in front of a projected image of the original Post-Dispatch story of her lawsuit, published in the Feb. 18, 1972, edition. This photo was taken in March 1998 in her apartment in north St. Louis County. (Jane Rudolph/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Minnie Liddell attends a press conference on Jan. 6, 1999, to announce a settlement among parties that would phase out court supervision of the city-county transfer program. With her, standing from left, are William Danforth, settlement coordinator; William L. Taylor, NAACP lawyer from Washington; Cleveland Hammonds Jr., city schools superintendent; and Bill Purdy, a city school board member. The announcement took place at Yeatman Middle School, 4265 Athlone Avenue, now called Yeatman-Liddell Middle School. Liddell took part in the original lawsuit in 1972 after the city school system said it planned to send her son from Yeatman, a school she liked, to an older school in a declining neighborhood. (Larry Williams/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
FEBRUARY 20 2001- A lot has changed since then, but I can still remember running around these halls said Craton Liddell, 42, who sits in a classroom at Yeatman Middle School. Liddell was 12 years old and had been student at Yeatman School for two years when the School Craton Liddell, 42, sits in a classroom at Yeatman Middle in February 2001. He died on Dec. 6, 2002, of an infected colon. After he became the famous first name in the lawsuit, he graduated from Northwest High School, attended Lincoln University and Harris-Stowe State College, he worked for the Job Corps, was a substitute teacher in St. Louis schools, and was a scoutmaster and associate pastor. He had suffered a heart and stroke several years earlier. (Laurie Skrivan/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Minnie Liddell is helped to a dedication ceremony on May 11, 2001, naming a small park downtown in her honor. The park is just north of the Board of Education office, 801 North 11th Street. Escorting her, from left, are Tyrone Jones of the dedication committee and the Rev. Willie Ellis. Liddell died March 27, 2004, at age 65. (J.B. Forbes/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution
© MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution All rights reserved.

FAQ | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Order Status