Integration

Parent and school bus driver remembers the first months of busing in Jefferson County.

A member of Save Our Community Schools (SOCS), an anti-busing organization describes her resistance to busing in the 1970s and her subsequent election to the Jefferson County School Board in 1974 as a result.

Lead counsel for the plaintiffs of Louisville school desegregation describes the suit against the state and discusses actions taken by the courts in the final ruling handed down in 1975.

Former Mayor of Louisville remembers the process of school integration in Jefferson County.

An interview with a Louisville woman who talks about her life and experiences. She recounts her work with the segregated Red Cross during WWII and her experiences with and views on race relations. Note: There is no audio component for this interview; a 567-page transcript is available.

Barbara Sutherland started teaching in the Louisville city/county school system in 1964. Her teaching certificate enabled her to teach elementary school and middle school. Her subject area was language arts. Mrs. Sutherland taught first through fourth grades in Abraham Lincoln, Wellington, and Norton Elementary schools. The latter fifteen years of her career she taught grades 6 and 7 at Kammerer Middle School. During the 1970s Sutherland felt that the changes in the schools brought on by court ordered desegregation and the city/county merger were handled poorly. She is critical of the systems implemented by the school system to solve school climate and discipline problems. Sutherland did not like the new programs of the 1970s and willingly transferred to a school nearer her home. She felt that she was forced to teach the "regular" students, primarily black students, and complains that they are not being prepared with life skills. In her classroom, Sutherland tried to have talk sessions with her students about their problems and concerns. She holds that no one is listening to those students and that they are falling through the cracks. She expresses a sense that integration let black students fall behind.

Legal counsel for Louisville school board remembers school integration case in Louisville.