July 27, 1954

In accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which deemed state laws mandating public school segregation unconstitutional, the five-member school board in Charleston (Franklin County) voted unanimously to integrate when classes started in the fall. Charleston schools quietly and successfully integrated first through twelfth grades without any publicity until about three weeks after school had started. Charleston was the first school district in the former Confederate states to integrate all twelve grades.

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