Editing Desegregation busing (section)

=== Before World War II ===
{{further|Black school}}

Prior to [[World War II]], most public schools in the country were ''[[de jure]]'' or ''[[de facto]]'' segregated. All [[Southern United States|Southern states]] had [[Jim Crow Laws]] mandating racial segregation of schools. Northern states and some border states were primarily white (in 1940, the populations of Detroit and Chicago were more than 90% white) and existing black populations were concentrated in urban ghettos partly as the result of [[restrictive covenant]]s.