- School
- Segregation
- 1961 (full desegregation plan 1973)
- City of Atlanta
- Location approximate
Murphy High, desegregated Aug. 30, 1961
One of the four white high schools desegregated on August 30, 1961. The school on the site now carries the name of Alonzo A. Crim, Atlanta's first Black superintendent.
The record
On August 30, 1961 nine Black students entered four white Atlanta high schools under a federal court order (Judge Frank Hooper's 1959 ruling): Thomas Franklin Welch, Madelyn Patricia Nix, Willie Jean Black, Donita Gaines, Arthur Simmons, Lawrence Jefferson, Mary James McMullen, Martha Ann Holmes and Rosalyn Walton. Of 132 students who applied to transfer, 10 were chosen. The Sibley Commission (1960) had advised accepting Judge Hooper's decision while offering measures that would let schools remain largely segregated. J. C. Murphy High School (1949–1988) was renamed for Alonzo A. Crim in 1988. After years of token integration, federal court orders in April 1973 cleared Atlanta's voluntary 'Compromise Plan' (minority-to-majority transfers, rezoning, closings and partial busing on the Northside), and that August Crim became Atlanta's first Black superintendent, serving until 1988.
Today: Alonzo A. Crim Open Campus High School, on Clifton St SE near the East Atlanta Village.