The plan called for integrating at the high school level and working downward, one grade, one year at a time. Originally, Virgil Blossom, the school superintendent, wanted to do just the opposite—beginning at the lower levels and working upward, on the theory that younger children would have less learned prejudice. But he found that white parental fear in the lower grades was more intense: parents were less nervous about their teenagers than their first-graders.
