Douglass High School in Festus, MO, near St. Louis was the first segregated school in the area to offer the 11th and 12th grades to black students.

As Douglass gave African American students an opportunity to complete their secondary education, teachers, attorneys and activists used the legal system to seek equity in the area’s schools and colleges.

Dewhitt Bingham looks at the civil rights legacy of his home town in his book ‘The Douglass Connection.’

View the transcript here.