How to Use desegregate in a Sentence

desegregate

verb
  • Eventually the city's schools desegregated.
  • The last straw may have come when the group sued to desegregate two school districts.
    — Jeff Amy, The Seattle Times, 30 Oct. 2018
  • There was the house of the lawyer who tried the case to desegregate Dallas schools.
    — Maggie Kelleher, Dallas News, 28 Feb. 2021
  • The city’s lunch counters were the first in the South to desegregate.
    — From Usa Today Network and Wire Reports, USA TODAY, 4 July 2022
  • Courts could not order a school to desegregate unless someone asked them to do so.
    — Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 31 July 2023
  • In his youth, Lewis applied to the school in an attempt to desegregate it.
    — Tribune News Service, al, 17 July 2021
  • Davis was a civil rights lawyer who fought to desegregate public schools in Texas.
    — Ciara McCarthy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 Oct. 2025
  • Phase one, perform sit-ins at white lunch counters and picket stores that refuse to desegregate.
    — Shannon Rae Green, USA TODAY, 24 Jan. 2022
  • The mass movement to desegregate schools, voters rights, etc.
    — Katie Bain, Billboard, 14 Dec. 2020
  • This is not like an injunction to reform a prison or desegregate a school system.
    — Mark Joseph Stern, Slate Magazine, 30 Jan. 2017
  • My high school was one of the first ones in Mississippi to desegregate.
    — Mathew Brownstein, New York Times, 13 July 2023
  • Unlike in the Deep South, there were no lunch counters to desegregate, no bus seats to claim.
    — Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Aug. 2023
  • Five years later, an appellate court ruled against the school district and ordered it to desegregate.
    — Teo Armus, Washington Post, 23 June 2022
  • In fact, the Palmetto State was one of the last states in the country to desegregate schools.
    — Rayna Reid Rayford, Essence, 28 May 2024
  • As pools began to desegregate across the country, many Black swimmers were met with contention.
    — Andre Toran, USA TODAY, 24 Feb. 2021
  • The governor sent state troopers to surround the schools set to desegregate in Huntsville.
    — Adam Harris, The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2020
  • On Tuesday, students again tried to desegregate the bowling alley, and again were turned away.
    — Deneen L. Brown, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2018
  • The moment was the culmination of years of work from civil rights activists to desegregate the park.
    — Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 28 Aug. 2023
  • The events led to a federal lawsuit forcing Uvalde to desegregate.
    — Althea Legaspi, Rolling Stone, 15 June 2022
  • King had already leveraged the boycott in Montgomery to desegregate the city’s bus system.
    — Victor Luckerson, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Sep. 2024
  • Lewis helped organize sit-ins to desegregate the city’s lunch counters in 1960.
    — Barbara Spindel, The Christian Science Monitor, 31 Oct. 2024
  • And just like me, Kamala and Ruby were also on the front lines of our nation’s battle to desegregate our schools.
    — Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 10 Nov. 2021
  • Though the military was beginning to desegregate, many in the Navy still thought of Black men as stewards and cooks.
    — New York Times, 2 Apr. 2021
  • Across the country in the 1970s, courts were ordering schools to desegregate.
    — Nellie Bowles, New York Times, 30 June 2019
  • Judge Potter was a neighbor who ruled to desegregate school busing in the 1970s.
    — Charlotte Observer, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Schools were ordered, by the state, to desegregate in 1965, but only by multiple choice.
    — Arkansas Online, 20 Feb. 2021
  • Louisville and Jefferson County schools were to be merged and desegregated.
    — Keely Doll, Louisville Courier Journal, 4 Sep. 2025
  • Their subsequent arrest helped to desegregate the library.
    — Mabinty Quarshie, The Washington Examiner, 17 Feb. 2026
  • The closure lasted five years, until the Supreme Court ordered the county schools to reopen and desegregate.
    — Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, 28 Sep. 2020
  • The Department of Justice pressed schools to desegregate.
    — Annie Ma, Los Angeles Times, 9 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'desegregate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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