Forced Integration Quotes
The following year most of the Southern Democrats joined the Republican Party in Protest over the Civil Rights Act. Reagan began to have national political ambitions and therefore flip flopped and stated that he would never have voted for the Civil Rights Act. This made him acceptable later as a conservative.
Following the lead of Arkansas, many southern schools were closed by order of the Governor when they received a court order to desegregate. Southern education was the poorest in the nation and the Southern students not able to go to school made the situation worse. Governor Almond changing his position realized that the cost of defying the Constitution and the courts was the ignorance of the students of the state, and became a major force persuading the state to integrate their schools. He is remembered for his leadership of desegregation and most people have forgotten that at the beginning of his term as governor he was as bad as most of the other Southern segregationist politicians.
