Desegregation busing (also known as integrated busing, forced busing, or simply busing) was a civil rights measure in the United States that came to national prominence in the 1970s. The goal of desegregation busing was to diversify the racial make-up of public schools by transporting students to more distant areas with less diverse student populations. Typically, this involved the busing of black students to schools out of district that were majority white. However, busing also occurred vice versa with the busing of white students to majority black schools.
While the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many American schools continued to remain racially homogeneous. In an effort to address the ongoing de facto segregation in schools, the 1971 Supreme Court decision, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, ruled that the federal courts could use busing as a further integration tool to achieve racial balance.