Hyde County School Boycott

In the fall of nineteen sixty-eight, the African American community of Hyde County made a quiet, determined stand. Rather than accept a desegregation plan that would close their own schools while busing Black children into white institutions, they pulled their children out entirely. Families boycotted the public schools for months, marching and holding protests in the county.

The action drew national attention and put pressure on local officials. Eventually a compromise was negotiated and the schools reopened. The Hyde County boycott remains one of the best known school desegregation protests in Southern history, a reminder that resistance to injustice took many quiet, sustained forms.