SCLC #622 Mississippi Choctaw schools · local exclusion + federal workaround

Three evidence kinds in 1961 Justice:

• Complaint + agency reply: area director Paul L. Fickinger acknowledged “some communities in Mississippi will not accept the Mississippi Choctaw Indians in their schools,” linked to federal school-building crash program.
• 1960 counts (Interior letter): 91 of 992 MS Choctaw school-age children in white public schools (~9.2%); 136 of 1,053 NC Cherokee (~12.9%); remainders in federal schools.
• Structural: MS Bureau schools through grade 10 only — finishing high school could require transfer >1,000 miles. Statute authorized separate Indian schools but did not categorically bar admission to white ones (unlike for Black pupils); legal permission ≠ practical access.

Primary: 61-006-U.pdf pp.142–144 notes 24–27 p.290.