The main purpose of this study is to present documented facts concerning the operation of school desegregation in communities which are engaged in the process. The purpose of the Commission on Civil Rights is to identify problems which recur in school districts undergoing desegregation, and to describe how they have been met. Specifically, the Commission has been interested in learning how students of all races react to one another when they sit side by side in schools for the first time in their lives. It has also sought to learn how teachers react to students of other races and socioeconomic backgrounds as well as to teachers of other races. Why and to what extent does "white flight" occur? How have some school districts prepared for desegregation? What, if any, problems are created by busing? Of the nine communities investigated here, some are in the South and some in the North. Some are rural and others are heavily urban. Some are central cities and some suburbs. Some have been forced to desegregate by court order or the threat of fund termination by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Others have undertaken to eliminate the dual school system on their own before being required to do so. Still others have sought to desegregate their schools simply because they felt it was the right thing to do. (Author/JM)