The Strange Career of Ware High School

Why did the first case that the U.S. Supreme Court decided on racial discrimination in schools, Cumming v. Richmond County (1899), come from Augusta, Georgia? Answers to that question and related ones cast a different light on the standard history of race relations and racial policy in the late 19th century, one that still flickers in discussions of strategy about major questions of public policy today. Why was there a Black high school in a Deep South city at all in this period? Who was responsible for its founding in 1880 and its continuation for seventeen years, what were the attitudes of white and Black citizens towards it, and why was it suddenly abolished in 1897? To what extent does the course of its history support the interpretations in what is still the leading work on late 19th century southern race relations, The Strange Career of Jim Crow?