Small world. I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and had first-hand experience with the busing program there...as a rider. As a 12-year-old I recall being a strident opponent of busing. However, the only reason was I had to ride said bus to school 90 minutes each way. Thankfully, the busing/desegregation schemes went through some major overhauls during my primary/secondary school years (1976-1988) and there was only one year when I was subject to the interminable bus rides.

If I recall correctly, in high school a ‘home school’ scheme was in effect. Each school had a ‘home’ feeder area; basically a racially gerrymandered district that would provide each school a racially balanced student body. That’s how they achieved integration without busing people across town. Unfortunately, the districts weren’t demographically balanced in any other way. Ergo, I ended up at a school that was fully integrated with poor people. That wasn’t exactly a recipe for success either.

Why not use the money to build and repair schools in black areas, hire more teachers, and fund more books--up-to-date ones--and equipment?

I dunno. Brown v Board of Ed., maybe?

Not sure if you're old enough to remember it, but busing was stupid in that it a) was a ham-handed approach to achieving parity in education funding and quality, b) imposed hardships on lots of kids both black and white (see Joe Bob above on long bus rides) and c) alienated large swaths of democratic voters. The resentment toward busing was key to making Reagan a viable candidate in the northeast in 1980, not to mention causing/accelerating white flight from urban areas and increasing suburban sprawl. Busing advocates had their hearts in the right place, but there are a lot of reasons why it faded from the scene.