Josephine Boyd Bradley, Who Integrated Grimsley High, Dies

Josephine Boyd Bradley, who integrated Greensboro's Grimsley High School nearly six decades ago, has died in Atlanta.   She was the first black student to integrate a school in the Southeast.

Following the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 she was the first student to integrate a school from Louisiana to Virginia. According to the News and Record, she first attended Greensboro Senior High School, now Grimsley, on Sept. 4, 1957.

Bradley later said that she was scared, but holding her mother's hand gave her strength.

The small black community off Pisgah Church Road was her home. Her doctoral dissertation was based on her Grimsley experience.

She served as a professor of African American studies at Clark Atlanta University.

The funeral for Josephine Boyd Bradley is Saturday at Metropolitan United Methodist Church, in Greensboro.