WFAE file photo
Vera and Darius Swann were plaintiffs in the landmark Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.
Fifty years ago, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Swann v. the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education that would shape the city’s public education system, its civic culture and its national image. The order to desegregate schools, using busing if necessary, turned Charlotte into a symbol of successful integration.
Decades later, everything changed. But the people shaped by desegregation carry the legacy with them.
The Swann ruling came on April 20, 1971. Anthony Foxx was born 10 days later. He recalls growing up in the shadow of West Charlotte High School, which would become a national symbol of the desegregation Swann demanded.