in practice, token integration was often just a new form of segregation. Black students sat by themselves in classes and the cafeteria. Students attacked them in the halls, teachers ignored or insulted them in the classrooms, and school officials excluded them from school activities, both on and off campus. For white liberals, the treatment of the transfer students dashed their faith in Atlanta’s progress. “When you hear 9 children say nobody spoke to them at school & nobody sat with them at lunch,” one activist reflected, “it doesn’t make you feel very happy.”
