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FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) — Fort Bragg will dedicate a school to a woman forced out of her job after she pushed to allow blacks to attend classes, years before a national court case made school segregation illegal.

The Fayetteville Observer reports the Mildred B. Poole Elementary School will be dedicated Wednesday. It’s the first school on the Army post that’s not named for a soldier.

Mildred Poole was the first chief administrator and principal of the Fort Bragg school system in 1948. She opened school doors for black children to join classes at Fort Bragg three years before Brown vs. Board of Education outlawed school segregation nationwide in 1954.

She was forced out of the school system in 1956.

Her namesake school in Harnett County serves about 530 children.

Poole was 91 when she died in 1992.

Information from: The Fayetteville Observer

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