Dale Bumpers (1925-2016) was a legendary politician from Arkansas, serving as Governor or U.S. Senator continuously from 1971-1999. Perhaps less well known, however, is his role in convincing the Charleston (AR) School Board to become the first school district in the eleven states comprising the former Confederacy to desegregate following the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. In this excerpt from a 2008 interview, Bumpers discusses his efforts during that period.