{"id":5133,"date":"2026-01-30T11:06:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T16:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/?p=5133"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:21:48","slug":"new-online-exhibit-displays-effort-to-desegregate-cincinnati-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/new-online-exhibit-displays-effort-to-desegregate-cincinnati-public-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"New online exhibit displays effort to desegregate Cincinnati public schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Julianna Witt, assistant archivist, and Catherine Cubera, digital archivist<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

On December 10th, 1973, the seven-member Board of the Cincinnati Public Schools adopted a resolution to end segregation of the city’s public school system — a resolution that would go unfulfilled and prompt a lawsuit by the Cincinnati branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new online exhibit<\/a> created by the Archives and Rare Books Library<\/a> (ARB) showcases the NAACP Bronson v. Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati<\/em> records, and documents the library’s efforts to create a finding aid<\/a> for the collection.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibit<\/a> gives users the opportunity to learn more about the collection virtually. StoryMaps, a story-authoring platform, allows for an interactive and engaging experience for users, combining digital narrative capabilities of platforms like WordPress or Omeka, but with additional features such as embedded timelines and dynamic, customizable maps. These capabilities made StoryMaps an ideal platform for bringing the Bronson exhibit to life. For example, by using this technology, we were able to design an interactive map that uses embedded cartographic points to highlight the 19 suburban Cincinnati school districts involved in the Bronson court case, helping to create spatial context and greater meaning for users as they make their way through the digital exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"exhibit
Suburban school districts interactive map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The focus\u00a0of the exhibit is on the\u00a0context\u00a0surrounding the case, the history of the\u00a0case\u00a0and key figures and events.\u00a0The exhibition\u00a0is broken down by a history of segregation in Cincinnati Public Schools, an interactive map on the suburban school districts that were involved, biographical information on the expert witnesses,\u00a0notes on the settlement agreement and\u00a0a timeline of key events leading up to the\u00a0case filing\u00a0and\u00a0turning points throughout the 10-year\u00a0legal battle.\u00a0To supplement\u00a0the digital exhibition,\u00a0there\u00a0are photographs of key documents\u00a0and\u00a0links to\u00a0previous\u00a0blog posts<\/a>,\u00a0the completed\u00a0finding aid<\/a>, ARB\u2019s online\u00a0catalog\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0initial press release<\/a>\u00a0announcing\u00a0the project.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"page
List of expert witnesses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The NAACP Bronson v. Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati<\/em> exhibition is a permanent addition to ARB\u2019s and the University of Cincinnati Libraries websites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bronson v. Board<\/em> collection contains the Cincinnati Chapter of the NAACP\u2019s records related to the case, including correspondence, court filings, background research on segregation in education in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the conditions of schools, curriculum and how the Cincinnati Public Schools addressed the decree that was agreed upon as a result of the case.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"national<\/figure>
\n

This project has been made possible in part by grant RH-104772-24 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the NHPRC.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Julianna Witt, assistant archivist, and Catherine Cubera, digital archivist On December 10th, 1973, the seven-member Board of the Cincinnati Public Schools adopted a resolution to end segregation of the city’s public school system — a resolution that would go unfulfilled and prompt a lawsuit by the Cincinnati branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). A new online exhibit created by the Archives and Rare Books Library (ARB) showcases the NAACP Bronson v. Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati records, and documents the library’s efforts to create a finding aid for the collection.   The exhibit gives users the opportunity to learn more about the collection virtually. StoryMaps, a story-authoring platform, allows for an interactive and engaging experience for users, combining digital narrative capabilities of platforms like WordPress or Omeka, but with additional features such as embedded timelines and dynamic, customizable maps. These capabilities made StoryMaps an ideal platform for bringing the Bronson exhibit to life. For example, by using this technology, we were able to design an interactive map that uses embedded cartographic points to highlight the 19 suburban Cincinnati school districts involved in the Bronson court case, helping to create spatial context and greater meaning for users as they make their way through the digital exhibit. The focus\u00a0of the exhibit is on the\u00a0context\u00a0surrounding the case, the history of the\u00a0case\u00a0and key figures and events.\u00a0The exhibition\u00a0is broken down by a history of segregation in Cincinnati Public Schools, an interactive map on the suburban school districts that were involved, biographical information on the expert witnesses,\u00a0notes on the settlement agreement and\u00a0a timeline of key events leading up to the\u00a0case filing\u00a0and\u00a0turning points throughout the 10-year\u00a0legal battle.\u00a0To supplement\u00a0the digital exhibition,\u00a0there\u00a0are photographs of key documents\u00a0and\u00a0links to\u00a0previous\u00a0blog posts,\u00a0the completed\u00a0finding aid, ARB\u2019s online\u00a0catalog\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0initial press release\u00a0announcing\u00a0the project.\u00a0\u00a0 The NAACP Bronson v. Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati exhibition is a permanent addition to ARB\u2019s and the University of Cincinnati Libraries websites.  The Bronson v. Board collection contains the Cincinnati Chapter of the NAACP\u2019s records related to the case, including correspondence, court filings, background research on segregation in education in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, the conditions of schools, curriculum and how the Cincinnati Public Schools addressed the decree that was agreed upon as a result of the case.   This project has been made possible in part by grant RH-104772-24 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the NHPRC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,227],"tags":[17,54,215,213],"class_list":["post-5133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-volume-24","category-volume-24-issue-2","tag-archives-and-rare-books-library","tag-collections","tag-enrich-our-collections","tag-expand-our-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5265,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions\/5265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/source\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}