After the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, still most Black students in Winston-Salem went to all black schools and White students did the same. In 1957 15 year old Gwendolyn Bailey was the first African American to enroll in an all white school in Forsyth County. She was not only ostracized at school but also had to endure harassment from whites riding by her house on trucks touting guns. Above she is pictured entering R. J. Reynolds High School, with Velma Hopkins and Harvey Johnston (right, Time & Life Magazines). (Courtesy of FCPL.)
Norma Corley and Roslyn and Kenneth Cooper were the first Black children in Winston-Salem to integrate an elementary school in Winston-Salem. More than half of Easton’s 600 students stayed at home that first day. Integration at Easton Elementary School, 1958. Pictured are: Mrs. Lovie Cooper, Kenneth Richard Cooper, Norma Ernestine Corley, Roslyn Dianne Cooper, and Mrs. Ernest Corley. Frank Jones is in the foreground. 1958 (Courtesy FCPL)
In efforts to achieve a fully integrated school system, busing was initiated which assigned and transported students outside their school districts. By 1971, the four Black high schools, Atkins, Paisley, Anderson and Carver, became junior high schools, leaving no senior high schools in Winston-Salem’s predominately Black neighborhoods.