This paper explores paradoxes of southern school and university segregation, analyzing how National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) litigation and local African American activism altered southern public education. The paradoxes first surfaced in the 1940s, when the constitutionality of separate and unequal salary schedules for black and white teachers was challenged. Though NAACP-sponsored litigation forced changes, other types of discrimination surfaced (e.g., salaries based on test scores). The constitutionality of segregation in higher education was challenged in the 1930s-40s, but this created a new racial order in education where access was increasingly shaped by class. As black students won educational rights, university authorities adopted new requirements limiting their access. States began requiring students to pass standardized tests, which hindered lower class black students and permitted token numbers of middle class black students. Significant numbers of black students attended schools with whites by the 1970s, but tracking recreated segregation. New social and economic opportunities widened class divisions in southern black communities. Many urban black institutions lost vitality and potency as they became segregated by class and race. (SM)