[5] Norma O'Bannon, was the Illinois-born daughter of a man who bought a plantation in Arcola, Mississippi.

[10] The student body of O'Bannon High School is 95% African-American/Black and 3% White American, with an additional 1% listing an ethnicity including "two or more races.

"[11] These percentages differ significantly from the state averages of 50% black and 46% white for Mississippi public school students.

[12] With the coming of federally ordered efforts at desegregation in the 1970s, parents of white students, particularly in the Mississippi Delta region, "fled en masse" from public schools to private academies, leaving the public school system in a state of ethnic and economic imbalance.

[12] Even in the 21st Century public schools in the Delta region remain predominantly black, with African-American enrollments frequently ranging from 80 to nearly 100 percent — far in excess of the state average.