Recent topics have included a study of integration at universities near here, the rhetoric of the Little Rock, Ark., desegregation crisis and the social structure of the southeast side of Chicago.

During the era of Massive Resistance and the desegregation crisis post-Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia, when Prince Edward County's public schools were closed, Gregory raised money for black students to attend private schools from 1959 to 1964.

Buchanan said that the Alabama congressional delegation had responded to the desegregation crisis "only after intense pressure from the home folks.

In September 1957, all eyes were on Little Rock Central High School, 2125 Daisy L. Gatson Bates Drive, (501) 374-1957, www.nps.gov/chsc, the site of a crucial desegregation crisis during the heat of the civil rights movement.

That is in the same southwest Yonkers neighborhood in which the city was once accused of warehousing the poor - the spark that ignited the Yonkers desegregation crisis.

Even Yonkers, a city scarred by a desegregation crisis and urban blight, is finally making a comeback, Mayor Philip A. Amicone said.

His experiences there during the 1954 desegregation crisis led to his interest in the mental health issues attendant to the racial situation in the South.

Dodd said that Jackson had tried to capitalize on the desegregation crisis: "Shelby Jackson was too dumb and schoolteacherish to use his great opportunities effectively.

From 1955-1958, he served on the elected Little Rock School Board during the desegregation crisis as a staunch racial segregationist.

In the thick of the city's desegregation crisis, he organized the forces for compliance with a federal court order.