This ethnography of Belvedere, Mississippi black students integrating the high school during Freedom of Choice (1966) posits that school experiences were an important part in the formation of identity in the South during Civil Rights. This article explores the relationship between individual activism existing conjointly and separate from school integration/desegregation by placing actions of two black students within their historical context between the Civil Rights Act (1964) and desegregation of public schools (1970) in hopes to contribute and shed light on places like Belvedere, which avoided civil rights violence but remained largely unchanged. (Contains 3 notes.)