HISD Desegregation (1968)

Duration: 1:17

Year Published: 1968

Sound: sound

Description: In this news segment for Houston’s KPRC-TV, reporter Tom Fox describes how the Houston Independent School District intends to facilitate racial integration. Although United States District Court Judge Ben C. Connally ordered HISD to integrate beginning in 1960, the transformation was slow and often ineffective. By 1968, the Department of Justice declared that the district’s desegregation efforts were moving too slowly. To address the charge, HISD planned to open a new school with a racially balanced faculty—a first among big cities in the South. Six schools would also adopt the federal prototype system. Notwithstanding these efforts, it took Houston decades to completely desegregate its public schools, and questions of de facto segregation remain.