Segregation Academies in Rural Alabama: White Resisters’ Final Stand Against School Integration in Wilcox County

Abstract

This paper examines the series of events leading to the establishment of segregation academies in Wilcox Academy, Alabama, followed by a brief analysis of how white resisters founded and built these white private schools. Following the federal enforcement of Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Wilcox County underwent a series of desegregation attempts that led whites in the rural county to adapt new resistance tactics such as “freedom of choice,” district zoning, and, finally, segregation academies. According to this research, segregation academies presented white resisters with the most successful method of white resistance and allowed them to override federal enforcement of integration in Wilcox for decades after Brown ruled to end segregation in school.