McDonald, Parker

In the 1954 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling declaring that separate schools for white and black students was inherently unequal. This thesis will evaluate the goals of desegregation based on the Court’s writings, and the opinion of academic scholars. It will then look at the history of desegregation in Gainesville Florida, and specifically, Eastside High School. With this history in mind, I will determine whether or not the goals of desegregation expressed by the court and these academic scholars have been met at Eastside. I will conclude that while the goal of desegregation (simply the removal codified segregation) has been met, the goal of integration (an active state intervention to remedy the effects of segregation) has not.