On May 31, 1955, The Supreme Court ruled in what became known as “Brown II,” that the task of carrying out school desegregation was delegated to district courts, with orders that desegregation occur “with all deliberate speed.” Many Southern states and school districts interpreted “Brown II” as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in some cases for a decade or more—using such tactics as closing down school systems, using state money to finance segregated “private” schools, and “token” integration where a few carefully selected black children were admitted to former white-only schools but the vast majority remained in under-funded, unequal black schools.