Alva Review-Courier -

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal judge Monday finalized a settlement in a 52-year-old Mississippi school desegregation case, merging historically white and black high schools and middle schools in a district.

The 3,500-student Cleveland school district had sought to maintain historically black and white high schools. But U.S. District Judge Debra Brown ruled in May that the plan maintained illegal vestiges of segregation, agreeing with the U.S. Justice Department and private plaintiffs.

The Mississippi Delta district agreed Jan. 30 to have to one high school on the campus of historically white...