Many white families responded by pulling their children out of the public schools to attend segregated private academies. White students began trickling back in the early 1980s, after the state passed a landmark school reform law. And, today, a majority of Mississippi districts are integrated. In the Jackson public schools, which include some areas outside the city limits, the student population is 85 percent black, compared with about 69 percent of the city's children. Over time, many of the city's white families have moved to the suburbs.
Children can learn without sitting next to a white child.
In the same breath, however, she points out that children from low-income homes are at the greatest disadvantage when they enter the public schools. In 1984, a group of Jackson parents launched an effort to stop white, middle-class flight to the suburbs. Five years later their efforts resulted in a formal organization called Parents for Public Schools. It later became a national organization with several other chapters.