In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that segregating children in the public schools by race was inherently unequal. The court said the nation must move with 'all deliberate speed' to desegregate the public schools. Initially, the Brown decision changed nothing in Jacksonville.

In 1962, Judge Bryan Simpson told the Duval County School Board to stop running a segregated school system and ordered the county to submit a plan for system-wide integrated schools.

The School Board filed a plan with the court, but, by 1967, they had made only small steps toward school desegregation.

For the next 28 years, the Court supervised the school’s desegregation—until May 27, 1999, when a judge ruled that Duval County Schools finally had attained “unitary” status. This decision was upheld by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in November 2001, ending school desegregation litigation in Duval County 40 years after it began.

Mims v. the Duval County Board of Education

On June 23, 1971, Eddie Mae Steward sued in this court on behalf of her daughter, Alta Oveta Mims. In her complaint, she asked the court to end all segregation in the school system. The plaintiffs argued that the school board had a history of unfair treatment toward African-Americans and that the court should oversee the conversion process.

In the Mims case, the court ordered immediate school desegregation. The judge devised the necessary plan requiring the Duval County School Board to close certain schools, to acquire 100–250 additional school buses, and to provide free transportation to any student choosing to transfer schools.