Reporting Highlights
- Widespread Divisions: A new ProPublica analysis shows how much private schools segregate students by race. Across the South, many of these schools are segregation academies.
- Huge Chasms in Mississippi: In Amite County, Mississippi, the divide is especially stark. Just 16% of public school students are white, but 96% of students at local segregation academies are white.
- White Leaders at Black Schools: Although 82% of Amite public school students are Black, their schools are largely controlled by white leaders who didn’t send their children to the local public schools.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
The scoreboard glowed with the promise of another Friday night football game in Liberty, Mississippi, a small town near the Louisiana border. The Trojans, in black and gold, sprinted onto the field to hollers from friends and families who filled barely half the bleachers.
The fans were almost all Black, as is the student body at the county’s lone public high school. Scanning the field and the stands would give you little indication that more than half the county’s residents are white.
In some swaths of the South, a big event like high school football unites people. But not in Amite County.
Just beyond the Trojans’ scoreboard, past a stand of trees, another scoreboard lit up. At Amite School Center, a small Christian private school, cars and pickup trucks crammed every inch of space on the front lawn and in its parking lots. A charter bus for the visiting team, another private school, r
