Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education TIMELINE
1965
The Beggining
More than 84,000 students attended 107 schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system, which serves the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1968–1969. 29% (24,000) of the students were black, and 14,000 of them attended 21 schools where at least 99% of the students were black. This was the outcome of a desegregation plan that the District Court had approved at the start of this case in 1965.
1968
1968:
Green v. County School Board, 391 U.S. 430, which required school boards to present a plan that promised realistically to work now until it is obvious that state-imposed segregation has been totally erased, was the basis for petitioner Swann's 1968 motion for additional relief.
1969
In April 1969, the District Court issued an injunction requiring the school board to present a desegregation plan for the faculty and students.
In February 1970, the expert and the board presented plans, and the court adopted the board's plan, as modified, for the junior and senior high schools, and the expert's proposed plan for the elementary schools.
President Nixon established the Cabinet Committee on Education and State Advisory Committees in 1970 to aid states in their efforts to desegregate schools on the federal level.
Busing
1971
The supreme court first approved busing as a strategy for desegregating schools in 1971.
Public schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg were not entirely integrated in 1971. In 1971, the Supreme Court ruled that busing was an effective strategy for desegregating schools. The court further mandated that the school board produce a concrete busing plan that would achieve school desegregation in accordance with the court's directive.
Desegregation
1971