The Period of Desegregation in Southern Schools

[seadoug]

I'm actually responding to something @WheatenLover shared in another post about her school experience as a youth. It made me want to share my own story.

Did anyone else go to school through the initial phase of Desegregation? If so, you can possibly relate.

I went to Junior High in Tampa, FL in the early 70's. I was bused across town to a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood. Desegregation was the right thing to do but it was rushed. None of the races in my school had been integrated at that point and it created violence and resentment.

There were riots every day during lunch period. My best friend was black and he used to warn me when it was time to go inside because the fights were going to start outside. The girls were worse than the boys because they carried razor blades and used them. The teachers would lock their classroom doors because they didn't want to be involved. During "9th Grade Day" (when the oldest students were graduating) it was customary for people to be beaten up by the graduates. I was warned that if I was a white guy walking down the hall by myself on a Friday I would get hit in the face by several black guys. I did. It was utter mayhem.

Honestly, I was terrified and was having difficulty learning so my parents pulled me out and put me in a Southern Baptist school. That came with its own challenges but at least I got a decent education. I still have difficulty looking back on that time.

I sometimes think when I share this that I was the only one who went through it. Sorry for sharing something so negative, but when I think about how "divided" our society is today, I think it is minor compared to the days of Segregation and Desegregation. I'm glad we've moved on, have a better understanding for one another and can respect each others' differences.

 

[hollydolly]

Just for context as it's mentioned in your post @seadoug, I hope @WheatenLover ..doesn't mind me moving her post here.... the original is still on the ''Titbit Trivia thread..''

Oh yeah. When we moved here from Germany, it was like night and day. The people were nice. My mom saw a huge billboard advertising a town-wide family picnic. She hurried to a new friend's house to see if she and her children would like go with our family. The neighbor lady sat her down and explained who was throwing the party and what they stood for: The KKK. This was in the mid-60s.

We moved to Georgia and same old, same old. Not now. Back then, when I was a teenager. My best friend used to ride her horse in the woods at night and sneak up on KKK meetings. I remember big meetings on top of Stone Mountain and crosses burned in front yards from time to time. This was in the mid-70s.

The KKK used to hang out on street corners collecting money. I'd make my stepdaughters cover their eyes until I could get away from them. I was driving, of course. This was in the early 1980s.

Once I dated a guy who I really liked. One day, he opened his trunk and he had a folded white sheet in it. I asked what it was. He said it was what he wore to meetings. What kind of meetings? Yup. KKK. I said, I cannot date you or be friends with you any more. That is reprehensible. And I walked away. This was in 1975.

Then, in Boston in 1992, I went with one of my best friends to a fancy, very expensive French pottery store in my neighborhood. It was a rainy day. I was looking straggly - wet, no makeup, jeans and a sweatshirt. She was looking spiffy because she'd been in court that day - gorgeous suit and looking spiffy. We were lawyers.

We went into the store. I went upstairs to look at cheese or dessert plates I loved which were $185 each. I visited those plates about once a month. I looked down to check on my friend, and watched for awhile. The owner of the store was following her closely. The owner wasn't fazed by me being in the store and handling the merchandise because I was white. Unlike my friend, who was black.

So I went down and told my friend to go outside and down the street to the bookstore and I'd meet her there. Then I basically went ballistic on the lady, but in a well-mannered way (yes, it can be done). At the time, my dad had some lifelong friends who would have taken care of that lady for us, so I was glad he didn't live in the same state I did. Sorta kinda glad. More like happy imagining it, but not having it done.

Same thing happened everywhere we went, in term of the constant racial prejudice. When I was there, I stood up for her a lot and noisily. A bunch of super stuck up store clerks who made minimum wage or a little more. What exactly did they have to be stuck up about?

 

[seadoug]

Thank you, Hols!

 

[WheatenLover]

Well, @seadoug my friend and I got locked in the classroom so guys wouldn't get us or stab us (according to the teacher) because we were wearing mini skirts. And so we were! I was astonished that my mother bought them for me. Mind you, we weren't set up for giving lap dances or anything. These were minis for 7th graders. At that point, I still thought girls got pregnant when boys kissed them! Not kidding.

I was so mad at that teacher. If I wasn't worried, why should he be? The worst that would happen was some MP's would come over there and haul me out of there. The MP's were super protective of the kids on base. Hell, everyone was.

I don't know if anyone had fights at my school. I didn't hear about or see any. The first and only fight I ever saw was between a few guys at NASCAR. My cousin wanted to indoctrinate my boys. Get 'em used to hanging out with the good ole boys, drinkin' and a-fightin' and watching the cars crash.

@hollydolly , I don't mind you moving it. If you can do it, you can delete it from the trivia thread. Thanks.

 

[WheatenLover]

I'm actually responding to something @WheatenLover shared in another post about her school experience as a youth. It made me want to share my own story.

Did anyone else go to school through the initial phase of Desegregation? If so, you can possibly relate.

I went to Junior High in Tampa, FL in the early 70's. I was bused across town to a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood. Desegregation was the right thing to do but it was rushed. None of the races in my school had been integrated at that point and it created violence and resentment.

There were riots every day during lunch period. My best friend was black and he used to warn me when it was time to go inside because the fights were going to start outside. The girls were worse than the boys because they carried razor blades and used them. The teachers would lock their classroom doors because they didn't want to be involved. During "9th Grade Day" (when the oldest students were graduating) it was customary for people to be beaten up by the graduates. I was warned that if I was a white guy walking down the hall by myself on a Friday I would get hit in the face by several black guys. I did. It was utter mayhem.

Honestly, I was terrified and was having difficulty learning so my parents pulled me out and put me in a Southern Baptist school. That came with its own challenges but at least I got a decent education. I still have difficulty looking back on that time.

I sometimes think when I share this that I was the only one who went through it. Sorry for sharing something so negative, but when I think about how "divided" our society is today, I think it is minor compared to the days of Segregation and Desegregation. I'm glad we've moved on, have a better understanding for one another and can respect each others' differences.

That is just awful. Nothing like that happened at my school, that I was aware of. Do have PTSD from it?

Man, if it had, I would have bailed the first time something happened. Especially you getting hit! Well, maybe not. At that point, I didn't have any experience with ditching school.

I was thinking the other day that I have never hit anyone or been hit by anyone. Of course, I always warned males whom I dated or became platonic friends with that any kind of physical abuse would lead to their speedy arrest. And after that, they would be at the mercy of my dad's friends, my brother, and my numerous male cousins.

 

[Aunt Bea]

I was in a small rural community in the North during the late 60s and early 70s.

There were only two black kids in the entire school, the children of a fairly high ranking retired military couple who both had high income jobs in the private sector.

When we went into the city to visit our maternal grandmother we would make fun of our mother when we heard the automatic door locks on the car click as we entered the gritty inner city neighborhood where she lived with our aunt and cousins.

Desegregation was just a new word and something to be marveled at on the evening news.

 

[DebraMae]

I was in high school when we integrated. It was a small town in Texas. I don't remember us having one single problem.

However, there was an incident I do remember at the local public swimming pool. Just kids having a good time and somebody felt they had to be offended by and make an issue of that.

 

[Naturally]

Grew up in Selma, Alabama ... yeah, that Selma, Alabama.
First year of desegregation in public schools was going into my senior year of high school.

Two private schools had opened and most white kids that could afford it, enrolled in private schools.
My dad worked in a small town over and there was a private school there as well.
Dad offered me, my brother and sister a choice of schools and left it up to us.
My brother and sister chose to go to the private school in the town my dad worked in.
Since it was my senior year, I chose to stay right where I was in public education.

So I had a class ring purchased my junior year and from the former all white high school.
The integrated class was held in the former all white high school, so nothing changed for me there.
The former all black high school was closed and turned into an integrated middle school.

Whites had been proud of their all white high school.
Blacks had been proud of their all black high school.
The integrated high school under a new name, new mascot, and new school colors was just something, well ... new.
Neither black nor white students were 100% happy but we tried to make the best of it.
Everyone got along but it was only integration up to the point of walking through the school door each morning.
Whites still hung with whites and blacks still hung with blacks ... for the most part.

In subsequent years, there were problems from time to time in that school.
But that first year, there were none.
Even now, with that school at about 99% black student enrollment, there are problems sometimes in Selma.
But not because of integration.
And many whites are still leaving Selma. Population is down more than a third from what it was when I was in high school.
One of the two private schools closed down a couple of years ago ... whites are leaving town.

Selma, where voter rights was an issue front and center in the 60's
... but be careful what you vote for.

 

[Been There]

At the age of 9, I was moved to a very country style county where there were many farms. Definitely a rural area. We had no segregation-integration issues or problems. I had black kids in my classes and we all got along with no fights or even arguments.

My best friend was white and lived in the farm next to ours. We didn’t even discuss racist things or not let the black kids join in playing or fishing. I never heard my grandparents talk about racial issues. Really, we were all friendly to one another line it was normal.

 

[Ted01]

I'm actually responding to something @WheatenLover shared in another post about her school experience as a youth. It made me want to share my own story.

Did anyone else go to school through the initial phase of Desegregation? If so, you can possibly relate.

I went to Junior High in Tampa, FL in the early 70's. I was bused across town to a mostly black and hispanic neighborhood. Desegregation was the right thing to do but it was rushed. None of the races in my school had been integrated at that point and it created violence and resentment.

There were riots every day during lunch period. My best friend was black and he used to warn me when it was time to go inside because the fights were going to start outside. The girls were worse than the boys because they carried razor blades and used them. The teachers would lock their classroom doors because they didn't want to be involved. During "9th Grade Day" (when the oldest students were graduating) it was customary for people to be beaten up by the graduates. I was warned that if I was a white guy walking down the hall by myself on a Friday I would get hit in the face by several black guys. I did. It was utter mayhem.

Honestly, I was terrified and was having difficulty learning so my parents pulled me out and put me in a Southern Baptist school. That came with its own challenges but at least I got a decent education. I still have difficulty looking back on that time.

I sometimes think when I share this that I was the only one who went through it. Sorry for sharing something so negative, but when I think about how "divided" our society is today, I think it is minor compared to the days of Segregation and Desegregation. I'm glad we've moved on, have a better understanding for one another and can respect each others' differences.

Yeah, Doug... that's kinda' how I remember it all too. A complicated era for me, to be sure.
I was younger than you and so I guess that it was even more complicated by seeing it all
through an elementary age child's mind... and I was none-too-bright, anyways!
I agree that it was a good/necessary thing to do... poorly implemented though.