But many, if not most, white Baltimoreans, who had grown up in a semi-southern city segregated by ordinance and covenants, either resisted change or ran from it. Some moved to the counties at the first whispers of integration in housing and public schools. A chart of Baltimore’s population shows the decline starting in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision that “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., or “Old Tommy,” was mayor at the time, and he agreed with the court’s ruling. “I asked the nuns,” he used to say. “They said it was right, so I went with the nuns.”