Busing for school integration--Kentucky--Louisville

Jann Westerfield Ballard talks about her life experiences growing up in the Okolona community and the experiences of African-American property owners on Cooper Chapel and Maple Roads, their community during the early 1950s, and how it changed or remained the same in the following forty year. The interview also covers Ballard's experience of public school integration and busing protests in the Cooper Chapel Road neighborhood and the community of Okolona.

Robert Benson (b. 1942 in Lousville), Louisville lawyer and former Kentucky legislator, speaks about his experiences with the Civil Rights Movement and some of its leaders in Louisville. Topics include how he became aware of prejudice in the community and got involved with the Open Housing movement; the demonstrations for Open Housing; his experiences representing the Hikes Point/Highlands district from 1974-1980; his friendship with ACLU lawyer Thomas Hogan, who filed the lawsuit that lead to desegregation efforts in Louisville; the passing of laws merging Jefferson County school districts; the passing of laws to desegregate the resulting combined school district; and the backlash and demonstrations against desegregation and busing.

As publisher of the Courier-Journal in the 1970s, Barry Bingham Jr. recounts the coverage of busing through the news media in Louisville. Discusses the weekly editorial conferences and research involved in taking a position of the paper on busing.

Sheila Brown grew up in the Parkland neighborhood and then lived all over the city. She was a child when the 1968 Parkland Riot occurred. She talked about how it changed her neighborhood. Brown was also among the first group of African American kids bussed in Louisville. She remembered the protest and taunts aimed at her and the other students.

Mr. Burch was principal of Southern High School when Jefferson County Public Schools initiated busing for integration in 1975. He was a long-time resident of Okolona, and a graduate of Southern High School. While stating that within the school, he was isolated from the community, he indicates that the pulse of the community had been quickened by media reports. He indicates that they never had any direct problems with protestors prior to the riots of September 6, 1975, and that rioters never tried to inerefere with the running of the school. He characterizes the internal workings of the school as remaining normal during this period, and indicates that the teachers kept their opinions to themselves. Similarly, he describes the students as having coped well under duress, with few discipline problems. He states that though the student body was obviously uncomfortable in the position it was in, the students did not fight amongst themslves. Burch recalls the night of a football game with Moore High School, another south end school which before the segregation order had been primarily black. He describes the issue as slowly dying down over the course of the school year - protestors eventually stopped coming around the schools, attendance gradually improved, and life returned to normal by the end of the school year.

The Louisville Times editor on the process of school desegregation in Louisville.

Personal history of Doris Chapman. Relates to Louisville, Kentucky childhood; the Great Depression; the 1937 flood; living in Camp Taylor; World War II; German POWs in Louisville; Okolona; bussing; working at GE; and the 1974 tornado. (Interview index available)

Fulton was 105 years old when interviewed in Columbia, Tenn. He lived more than twenty-five of his life in Louisville and discusses that period in this interview. He recounts his friends both Black and white, integration, and his work.

Biographical information of Judge Gordon and an account of the history of preliminary cases of desegregation in Louisville and in Jefferson County.

U.S. Marshall of the Western district of Kentucky describes his responsibilities and the process of carrying out school desegregation order in Louisville.