Meet Dorothy Counts, the first black student to attend an all-white school in the United States

Dorothy Counts, 15, is taunted and harassed by white students as she makes her way from Harding High School in Charlotte, North CarolinaWikimedia Commons

In September 1957, at the age of 15, Dorothy Counts made national news when she became the first black student to enroll in Charlotte's newly desegregated Harry Harding High School (North Carolina). The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, occurred about three years prior to this. During the first week she spent at Harding, she was subjected to nonstop harassment and her teachers disregarded her. Students spat on her meal, threw erasers at her, and shattered the back glass of the vehicle that her family was driving. Those few pupils among her fellow students whom she had managed to befriend were swiftly targeted as well.

Sept. 4, 1957 Counts is escorted from school, followed by a crowd of 100 jeering students.Rare Historical Photos

My father was giving me a warning and was saying to me, ‘Remember all the things you’ve been taught. Hold your head up high. You’re not less than anyone else’…. I felt I had all that in me when I went there, knowing that, yes, this is right. I’m doing the right thing.-Dorothy Counts

The Counts' parents were informed by the police that they were unable to ensure their daughter's safety. After only four days at Harding, her family made the decision to take her out of there. After Counts and her family relocated to Philadelphia, the adolescent was able to complete the final two years of her secondary education at a school that welcomed students of different races and ethnicities together. The photograph that captured Counts bearing the jeers of a racist crowd was taken by Charlotte News photographer Douglas Martin and went on to win the World Press Photo of the Year award.

Roughly two hundred to three hundred people made up the hostile crowd that followed her and yelled racial epithets at her. The majority of those in the crowd were students and their parents. She was insulted by the throng, who also spat on her and threw sticks and small stones at her. Unafraid, Dorothy passed by without reacting, but she later said to the press that a large number of individuals threw rocks at her, the most of which landed in front of her feet, and that students formed walls but parted ways at the very last second to allow her to walk past.

After walking into the building, she went to the auditorium to sit with her class. She was constantly taunted with racial slurs, just like she was outside the school. She said that no one helped her or kept her safe during this time. She said that when she went to her homeroom to get her books and schedule, no one paid attention to her. Around noon, when school was over, her parents asked her if she still wanted to go to Harry Harding High School. Counts said she wanted to go back to school so she could make friends with her old classmates. The next day, Dorothy got sick. She stayed home from school that Friday because she had a fever and a sore throat. On Monday, she went back. When they got back to school, there wasn't a lot of people outside. But the students and teachers were shocked when she came back, and they began to bother the 15-year-old girl. During class, her teacher put her at the back of the room and ignored her.

At lunch on Tuesday, a bunch of males surrounded her, and one of them spit on her meal. She then went outside with her homeroom class and met another new student, who also told Counts about her experiences with moving to Charlotte and starting a new school. When Counts got back to her house, she told her parents that she was more happier now that she had a buddy. After what happened over lunch, Counts begged her parents to pick her up during that time every day so that she could eat. Counts encountered the girl on Wednesday in the hallway, and she ignored him while hanging her head. It was during lunchtime that day that someone threw an eraser at her, striking her in the back of the head. She went outside to meet her older brother for lunch and noticed that the crowd had gathered around the family car, which now had broken rear windows. It was the first time Counts had ever felt fear, she recalls, because her family was in danger.

She was met by hostile crowds of students and adult members of the local White Citizen Council who taunted her, spit on her, and pelted herRare Historical Photos

Dorothy's parents pulled her out of school after four days of bullying because they feared for her safety, but the video of her being verbally abused by her white classmates went viral. Counts and her family eventually settled in Philadelphia, where the teenager attended a fully integrated high school and graduated. She moved back to Charlotte, attended Johnson C. Smith University, and is now a preschool teacher and advocate for early childhood education. She stayed in Charlotte and continued her volunteer work with kids from low income families.

Counts-Scoggins got an email from a guy named Woody Cooper in 2006. He was sorry for being in the famous photo and admitted to being one of the boys in it. At lunch, Cooper asked her to forgive him, and she said,

“I forgave you a long time ago, this is opportunity to do something for our children and grandchildren.”

They decided to tell their experience and soon found themselves doing media appearances and public speeches together.