50 years after busing began, the area’s early school integration efforts are still shaping modern Memphis
By April of 1973, the end of the first and only semester of busing under Plan A was nearing its end. (Courtesy Special Collections Department, University of Memphis Libraries)
Half a century ago this month, 39,000 Memphis children — about a third of the then-Memphis City Schools system — were told to board school buses and continue their education at new schools in an effort to racially integrate them.
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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