Former Schools Superintendent Carroll Johnson Dies

Carroll Johnson, the man responsible for putting White Plains schools on the forefront of the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, died Monday at the age of 99.

Johnson, who served as superintendent of White Plains schools from 1954-1969, died in Sarasota, Fl., the district's board of education announced this week. A moment of silence was held in his honor.

An obituary in The New York Times this week called Johnson a "schools integrator" who, in the early '60s, became one of the country's first urban school superintendents to voluntarily use bus systems to integrate schools.

Johnson's bus plan transported hundreds of black students to different schools with the goal of preventing any school in the district from having less than 10 percent or more than 30 percent minority students, the Times report said. At the time 20 percent of White Plains students were black, but most were concentrated in a small amount of the schools, the report said.

Within four years, schools reported better test scores for black students with no change in scores for white students, the report said.

Johnson also helped organize several local programs, including the annual scholastic achievement dinner, an event honoring the top two scholars from each school in Westchester County.

Click here for the full report on NYtimes.com.