Segregation

Eugene Allen, who worked for more than three decades as a White House butler -- some of those years during an era of brutal segregation when he often had to use back doors despite his employer's rarefied address -- sat in the shadow of the Capitol dome Tuesday and watched Barack Obama become the first African American president of the United States. "I never would have believed it," said Allen, 89, sitting in an invitation-only area.

The three deejays spun R&B and hip-hop, with a focus on oldies, party anthems and black artists gone mainstream -- Michael Jackson, OutKast, Gnarls Barkley. These were carefully chosen common denominators, songs that black and white club-goers might agree upon in 2008. And, in fact, the two races were here in equal measure on a Friday night, dancing shoulder to shoulder at this upscale club in the heart of the old Confederacy.

Six members of the Freedom Riders, a group of college students who defied segregation on interstate buses in 1961, got back on the bus to retrace their journey from Montgomery to Birmingham. They were joined by about 100 students on a trip organized by Vanderbilt University. The Freedom Riders started as a group of 15 volunteers but swelled to a movement of more than 400 during their protests in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia.

Fifty years ago, nine black students faced down a mob to integrate Little Rock Central High School. Now, they are being honored on a commemorative silver coin. The U.S. Mint introduced the coin Saturday at the NAACP's Daisy Bates Education Summit, which pays tribute to the Arkansas NAACP leader who served as advisor to the Little Rock Nine. One side of the $1 coin depicts a group of students being escorted by a soldier. It features the phrase "Desegregation in Education" and contains nine stars.

The Orange County lawsuit that desegregated California schools was deemed of such historic significance that a postage stamp commemorating it will be released in September. But organizers of the Fourth of July parade in Huntington Beach -- the largest in the western United States -- denied an entry celebrating the 60-year-old ruling, saying it lacks "entertainment value."

The "Magical History Tour" bus may roll back into Huntington Beach's Fourth of July parade. Parade organizers had snubbed the 1967 Volkswagen bus, which honors the Orange County lawsuit that desegregated California schools, because it lacked "entertainment value," although the U.S. Postal Service has deemed the lawsuit worthy of a commemorative stamp.

Authorities have ordered banks to separate female and male workers at their headquarters, a new setback for women's rights in the kingdom. Banks are one of the main employers of women in Saudi Arabia. Although women are separated from men in branches, they have worked together in bank headquarters. Saudi Arabia's strict law and customs prohibit unrelated men and women from mixing, and women from driving cars and voting in municipal elections.

British World War II troops were told to show respect for the U.S. Army's racial segregation practices, according to government documents published today. Other documents released for the first time show that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was determined to have Adolf Hitler executed if captured, and that he favored letting Mohandas K. Gandhi die if he went on a hunger strike while interned during the war. The guidelines about U.S.

A coalition filed court motions Friday to fend off two lawsuits challenging the Los Angeles Unified School District's desegregation policies. The ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and four other groups filed motions to intervene in the suits, arguing that the district's policies are essential to maintaining integration and are required by a court order.

Marvin Mitchell and Henry Lee Smith forged a brotherly bond long before the civil rights era came to Georgia's Appalachian foothills. Smith taught Mitchell how to drive a car in the early 1950s. Mitchell's parents gave Smith a job and fed him at the family table. But six mornings a week, the two old friends enter the 4 Way Lunch counter through different doors at breakfast time. Mitchell, who is white, goes to the main dining room up front.