In 1949, Willie Arbuckle, Robert Turner, Artie Mae Turner, Joella Arbuckle, Ernestine Jackson, Willie Ruth Payne, J. L. Payne, and Nina Loftan were the first eight Black students integrated Chandler High School, five years before the Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education integrated schools nationwide. After attending segregated schools in Mesa, Phoenix, and Chandler’s Goodyear School, these groundbreaking students opened the school year as juniors, sophomores, and freshmen at Chandler High.
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To listen to an oral history interview with Willie Ruth Payne Akins recorded on November 16, 2004, as part of the Goodyear School Oral History Project, or to read a transcript of the interview, click the icons below:
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