Mississippi Education

Until the Civil War era, Mississippi had only a small number of schools and no educational institutions for blacks. The first school for blacks was established in 1862, and a system of public education was started in 1870, but as late as the early 20th century, there were few schools in rural areas. Blacks and whites attended separate public schools in Mississippi until the 1960s, when they began to be integrated following a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. In the late 1980s, the state had 954 public elementary and secondary schools, with a total yearly enrollment of about 369,500 elementary pupils and about 132,500 secondary students. Some 45,700 students attended private schools.