Sept. 3, 1963 - Negro students entered white public schools today in many cities of the South. In most places, integration came without even token hostility. Alabama was the major exception. There, Governor George Wallace ordered state troopers to bar access to all schools in which integration was to occur. Historic Charleston, South Carolina (pictured), where the first shot of the Civil War was fired, led a long list of communities that broke with tradition and peacefully lowered school racial barriers. A 15-year-old girl, one of 26 Negroes admitted to four previously segregated Charleston schools, summed it up this way: “I had a wonderful first day.” At Baton Rouge, 27 Negro students became the first of their race to attend public high schools with whites in Louisiana. In Memphis, the white community paid almost no attention as 258 more Negroes entered white schools. In Virginia, eight communities quietly desegregated schools. In Cambridge, Md., 20 Negroes entered white schools amid some jeering. Small groups of whites gathered outside schools at Jacksonville, Fla., but they were easily dispersed. Public schools in four Florida counties — Duval, Leon, St. Johns, and Okaloosa — were desegregated without incident. Florida schools started lowering racial barriers in 1959, and the tempo of desegregation has been speeded up in recent years. A total of 16 counties, including the four latest additions, started the school year with integrated classes.
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