Reunion

What happens when two segregated high schools merge?

- Ed Winrios

THERE WAS A time, about 60 years ago, when many of principal Randy Grierson’s students wouldn’t have been allowed to step foot in the building that now houses Cleveland Central High School. But on a morning in August, there they were, a gaggle of goofy teens joking and chattering in the halls, back to school after a long, hot Mississippi summer. Grierson greeted them with a stare, followed by a grin forming on his square-jawed face. Some people had expected trouble—maybe fistfights, maybe parents pulling their kids out of school, who knows? Even Grierson, optimistic by nature, had concerns. “Is everybody okay?” he said, stepping into a classroom filled with a mix of black and white students. “Is everybody’s schedule—is everything good on their schedule?”

“No!” a few students shouted almost in unison, before the mood lightened with an explosion of collective laughter.

Cleveland Central High School is the latest attempt, after years of litigation, to desegregate Mississippi’s school districts. The town of Cleveland, home to 12,000 people, hosts tiny Delta State University and the recently built Grammy Museum, a 27,000-square-foot facility smack-dab in the birthplace of the blues. In the center of town, a tree-dotted promenade sits where train tracks once split Cleveland in two— whites lived on the west side, African Americans on the east side—and the town’s schools long reflected that divide.