Year of total integration
No answer.
What is total integration to a school system like Taliaferro? In 1965, instead of accepting any African American students under the Health, Education and Welfare Department's Freedom of Choice plan, every white student fled the school system.
The children scattered to various places. Many went to Greene, which - and this will seem self-defeating - began integrating when the schools opened Aug. 27, with 13 children in Greensboro schools, according to the Sept. 3, 1965 (Greensboro) Herald-Journal. Some went to Hancock County. Up-and-coming private schools absorbed more.
A year later, Crawfordville's Murden school became Taliaferro County. No white students returned.
Taliaferro County School kept operating. Already a small county, numbers dropped, as they tended to do in very rural areas. Taliaferro did not have enough students to feasibly operate their own high school. Greene County High began a takeover of sorts, and in 1982 a new high school in Greensboro took the name Greene-Taliaferro. All students who would be in Taliaferro County High were instead bused there. A May 4, 1981 Augusta Chronicle article said there were still no white students attending the public school in Crawfordville.
The year 1970 is generally a line for full integration in Georgia. Taliaferro made no changes. The white school sat empty. Taliaferro County's elementary and high school remained where it was.
Does full integration exist when it's not acted upon?
Taliaferro's elementary survived a further threat of closure in the late 1980s because of its lack of students. It regained its high school in 2001 and has a newer campus. Stats show students of several races attending. For now, it seems its status is at least stable.
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