The Minimum Foundation Program in the 1950s was a huge development for African American schools. With the state of Georgia providing building funds and leasing the schools to systems on a 20-year basis, the state's woeful infrastructure for public education was modernized.

Black schools were biggest changed by the building program. Previously, even when school systems were interested in improving African American education, they were hindered by a lack of funds. Schools in this era, white and Black, were often built as cheap as possible, with no thought beyond current needs. With the state's help, survey committees and professional input, each school system wanting their piece of the money had to go through an extensive process to prioritize needs for now and for years to come.

With this, ahem, foundation, many systems got generations of use for these buildings, plenty well beyond their original 20-year leases. (At the end of the lease period, the title to the building went to that school system). Most of these buildings had a distinctive look, one-storey, with a series of outdoor wings.

The building program was not completely out of kindness. Georgia government officials knew that the state of its African American schools was embarrassingly bad, not close to the "separate but equal" promised more than 50 years earlier in the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson. Sometimes dubbed "equalization schools," these were to head off any attempts at integration, both at the national government level, and at the local level. Before the Minimum Foundation Program got off the ground, a handful of school systems potentially faced lawsuits from Black citizens over conditions. While suits were dismissed, Greene County residents were able to force a quick build on a new building that consolidated many of the frame shacks that attempted to educate children.

Georgia's efforts were indeed good enough. Atlanta city was the first for any integration in September 1961, seven years after Brown v. Board of Education. A few large systems did a tiny bit of integration, but the first large-scale efforts outside the cities came months after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

School systems were asked to sign a pledge in 1965 with the federal government that they would comply with integration orders, which, for most, were freedom of choice plans. Complete integration began in a handful of school systems in 1965, all of these early ones mountain counties with minuscule Black populations.

Full integration began picking up steam in 1967 as the feds began cracking down on school systems they considered stragglers. Some systems were outright hostile and had federal funds taken away. This pressure caused many to pick up their efforts, doing more than freedom of choice. High school grades were the most frequently completely desegregated, all with the clear mandate from the federal government that the elementary school grades would soon follow.

The year 1969 was another major one for complete desegregation, with nearly every school system complying for the 1970-71 school year. A few remained segregated in parts, some with the feds' understanding because of a lack of space (Liberty County, for example) or because of their majority-minority status (Hancock County, Macon County).

As more research is done, more of the stories can be told. Dates will be hammered down better in the future, allowing for more details - when known - about how Georgia's school systems dealt with African American schools.

This will be an ongoing project in other ways. The Georgia Department of Education began in 1937-38 publishing a cumulative list of white schools around the state. This same effort did not extend to Black schools until 1957-58, with the 1956-57 edition listing major school centers.

Research has uncovered many pre-1957 names for African American schools, with more added as they are found. These profiles are currently adding the 1956-70 schools from the Georgia Educational Directory. The directories were not 100% accurate for what existed each year, but are considerably accurate and provide an excellent look at not only what existed prior to complete desegregation, but also insight into a life of rural schools and a Georgia that has long disappeared.

Counties with a silver background had no known African American schools in 1950. There were four counties with this status: Dawson, Forsyth, Towns and Union. Union was known to have had a Black school into the early 1930s, but no other details are currently known.

Note: Schools listed for 1956-57 Georgia Educational Directory are incomplete for some school systems. These were marked in the directory with a # and will be noted in the listings here if they are incomplete. With most consolidation done across the state in 1957, the directory made a cumulative list. Before 1956, the directories listed accredited African American schools.