ted in Mansfield allowed black and white children to play together under certain restrictions, but as the children grew into adults, the color line became more visible.In 1950, the Mansfield Colored School consisted of two long, shabby barracks-style buildings, with no electricity, running water, or plumbing. Only one teacher was hired for grades one through eight. There was very little equipment, no flagpole, no fence around the playground, and no school bus. Black children in the ninth through twelfth grades had no school in Mansfield. They traveled by bus to downtown Fort Worth to attend the only two black secondary schools in the area. Even though school dismissal was at 3:30 p.m., the bus did not leave the station until 5:30 p.m. Students that engaged in extra-curricular activities did not arrive home until after 9:00 p.m. (Ladino 6-10).After the Brown Supreme Court decision was passed down, the black subtrustees La Point 5presented a petition to the school board requesting immediate integration of the Mansfield public schools. The school board responded in a letter to the president of the Mansfield NAACP, T. M. Moody:The problem of desegregation does not rest within the jurisdiction of our local school board. Our school system is statewide and as a board we are obligated to perform the duties so given us by law; and as of this date the law and out construction regarding same given to us from the state officials, is to continue with out dual school system just as we have in the past. (Ladino 14)On October 7, 1955, a class action suit was filed in the United States Federal District Court in Fort Worth. Three students were “requesting the integration of and admittance into Mansfield High School for themselves and also for all eligible black students in Mansfield” (79). The case was titled Nathaniel Jackson, a minor vs. O. C. Rawdon (the Mansfield school board president).The plaintiffs lost the case, but made an ...
