The Racial Conversion of Schools

Operating a segregated school system was wildly inefficient. Negro schools were overcrowded, and white schools were underutilized. Children often had to travel much farther than necessary in order to attend a school for their race. The Board was often petitioned to convert white schools to Negro, in order to consolidate and more efficiently utilize white schools and relieve the overcrowding of Negro schools. However, these conversions were time-consuming, complicated, costly, and plagued by political strife.  The following excerpts describe some of these problems and detail the overcomplicated nature, financial instability, and inefficiency of segregation.