Ms. Anita Russell, President of the local chapter of the NAACP, remembers the impact of Brown vs. Board of Education on her life and the lives of other Black students. She recalls her parents’ announcement that she would be attending Longfellow, a school that Black students could not previously attend. In her role as president, she has provided leadership for bringing attention to funding of public schools, qualified teachers, and the impact of Charter schools in the District.
Attorney Kathy Walter-Mack became involved with school desegregation as Executive Director for the Desegregation Monitoring Committee from 1991-1994. This 13 member citizens’ committee, chaired by Dr. Eugene Eubanks, was charged with ensuring that the court order was implemented. Later in the 90s, she was the in-house legal counsel for the district and worked closely with the desegregation case that was dismissed in 2003. She noted that the remedy imposed was unlike any other, the idea of a magnet program that would attract students back to the district, a capital improvement program, and increases in teacher salaries.