The state legislature even rejected a local control option that would allow school districts to decide that Black and White students could attend schools together. But under the state’s massive resistance plan, public schools were closed to avoid complying with court orders to desegregate. Some county officials just shut down their public schools completely. The state even funded the establishment of private schools that were only open to White students. It took years, and more Supreme Court rulings in 1964 and 1968, for desegregation to take hold across the state.