Each entry focuses on a few items: Year Minimum Foundation building program completed; Year of total integration; Known high schools; and Known schools.

Let's break these down.

Year Minimum Foundation building program completed: The Minimum Foundation changed all elementary/high school grades education in Georgia, for all races. In an effort to modernize education, the state paid for the building of new schools and installation of equipment in nearly every school district.

This was accomplished through an extensive application process, which involved neutral parties studying existing buildings and population trends. The 1950s-60s saw a major turnover in rural Georgia as people fled the farms for the cities. Georgia did not want to pay for buildings that would soon by empty and heavily favored consolidation to get the most bang for its buck. That each building was leased to their school systems for 20 years was a further deterrent.

The building program also was there to stave off integration attempts. Georgia officials were perfectly aware that Black schools were in no way equal to white. With lawsuits bubbling up (though all were quickly extinguished) over conditions an extensive project to improve Black education would help their odds of preventing/stalling integration.

Whereas Georgia had been quite unequal along racial lines for education, Minimum Foundation building monies were actually distributed very fairly. A few local school officials even complained that Black students got more for these schools than white.

The Minimum Foundation included equipment, lunchrooms and auditoriums (the latter two combined as a cafetorium, a lunchroom with a stage). It did not build gymnasiums for either race.

The battle for gyms was a hot issue in many places in the 1960s. Race could have factored in to not building gyms in the 1950s. Few Black schools had their own gyms until a decade later while nearly all white schools did, albeit many being cheaply constructed wooden shells.

Saving money was also a major factor for the state. The program cost them millions in 1950s money and billions in today's. The school buildings themselves mostly had a similar look and the state set its preferred costs for when each system's building program came up for bidding. It was also a state requirement that - with few exceptions - all buildings must be worked on concurrently, Black and white.

The distinctiveness of the state's preferred design for 1950s new school buildings has been a great asset for helping determine via Historic Aerials what schools were built courtesy Minimum Foundation.

Year of total integration: Integration began in Atlanta city schools in September 1961. For the vast majority of the state, initial integration began with freedom of choice forms in 1965 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

No school system completed integration before 1965.

Those that did totally integrate that early were mountain counties with a very low Black student population. Murray, Fannin and Rabun counties are confirmed to have fully integrated in 1965. Gilmer probably did as well.

Gilmer, Union, Towns, Dawson and Forsyth counties did not have any Black schools in 1965. Gilmer was busing its few school-age students to Pickens County. If Union, Towns and Dawson had any school-age children to bus is currently unknown. If any of those three did, their students would have integrated in 1965. That was the year the federal government cut out busing across county lines for Black students.

A few others completely integrated in 1966, including the first school systems with enough Black students to operate a high school. Habersham, Chattooga and Catoosa had high schools and completed integration that year. Banks, White, Lumpkin and Dade were among those who had already had high school students returned in 1965 from across county lines, then closed elementary schools a year later.

Full integration gradually happened over the next few years as the Department of Health, Education and Welfare pressured systems to increase the rate of integration. HEW demanded the end of the dual system in January 1970.

Research is still ongoing into each school system to further fill out any details as to how integration went for each. Some newspapers were better than others about detailing the process.

Known high schools: What we know existed for high school grades, and dating when these schools existed where possible. Not all systems had Black high schools and some operated partial high schools, that did not have the full amount of grades.

Known schools: The Georgia Department of Education did not attempt a major list of Black schools until its 1956-57 directory (a full list of white schools began 20 years earlier).

Newspaper research is filling in bits and pieces and hopefully gives a potential idea of what existed prior to the Department of Education picking up in 1956.

On with the list and links of counties: