Scott Bibb (1855-1909)

Scott Bibb (1855-1909) was the plaintiff in the Alton School Case, a series of lawsuits that sought to retain Alton’s desegregated schools, which had existed in Alton from 1872 to 1897, a short-lived outcome of the Reconstruction Era. When Alton city officials re-established segregated schools in the fall of 1897, the African-American community resisted en masse. Bibb brought suit in The People of the State of Illinois, ex-rel., Scott Bibb vs. The Mayor and Common Council of the City of Alton. Over the next 11 years the lawsuit was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court 5 times. In 1908 the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bibb, but Alton failed to implement the orders of the court, denying African-American students access to white schools. It would take another 50 years before the educational system in that city would be desegregated once again.