Photos: How Atlanta Public Schools integrated in 1961
1 / 29
On Aug. 30, 1961 the Atlanta Public School system desegregated when nine black students—remembered as the Atlanta Nine—entered four all-white APS high schools. Members of the national press were in town to see whether the situation would explode into a conflict like Little Rock in 1957 or New Orleans in 1960. Here's how the city carefully managed the potential conflict. This image is from the second day of class and shows Willie Jean Black, Arthur Simmons and Donita Gaines leaving Northside High School. Some of these images have never been published before. If you know anyone depicted in these pictures, please contact cquinn@ajc.com or rhalicks@ajc.com; we'd love to get in touch with them. (Charles Pugh / AJC Archive at the GSU Library AJCP297-004b)