Primary Source Set

Racial Integration in K-12 Schools

In the mid-20th century, the Supreme Court ruled that schools were no longer able to segregate students by race. This collection uses high school yearbooks, newspaper articles, photographs, video and oral history to illustrate how education changed between the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling and the mid-1970s, when North Carolina finally met the requirements set by that case.

Time Period

1950s to 1970s

Grade Level

7 – 12

A newspaper clipping titled

Transcript

To Be Equal By Vernon E. Jordon, Jr. You might think that the end of the school year would cool off the persistent busing controversy, but it hasn't. The new attention to the school bus comes with the highly publicized statement by sociologist James Coleman that court-ordered busing leads to white flight to the suburbs and consequent greater segregation of urban school systems. Coleman's earlier research, with its finding that integrating lower class black students in schools with middle class whites led to better educational achievement for blacks and no change for the whites, helped support the argument that integration improves schooling. Coleman's pronouncement that busing has failed in that it just leads to resegregation has been seized with glee by the anti-busing crowd and with disappointment by integrationists. Neither reaction is called for: the statement must be seen in context. One of the problems of social sciences lies in the fact that studies of social issues are often inconclusive. Coleman's research has been challenged, and seriously damaged, by two equally prominent sociologists. Dr. Robert Green of Michigan State University and Dr. Thomas Pettigrew of Harvard. They blast the new Coleman study as unsubstantiated and point out that the white middle class started its exodus from the cities back in 1950, before the Supreme Court's decision outlawing segregated schools. In some cities, court-ordered busing followed years of massive white movement to the suburbs. Coleman is clearly wrong in stating flatly that whites are moving out of the cities to escape school busing. It may influence some but most of the new suburbanites are searching for the American Dream of a plot of land, a house and a picket fence. That's a Dream closed to most black people because of non-enforcement of fair housing laws, local zoning regulations, and economic hardship. One way to integrate the schools is to integrate housing patterns, but that doesn't mean busing has no place. This country has become obsessed with busing, instead of being concerned about providing quality educational opportunities for all. The school bus is not the answer for every educational problem, but it is one useful device to help integrate the schools and to make the next generation of Americans less class and race conscious and more open to diversity and pluralism, which, in itself an important educational goal. The fatal flaw in studies purporting to show that busing -- or compensatory education or other innovations -- doesn't work, is that such new programs are almost never really tried. Very few school systems have honestly made a priority effort to make integration work. The typical response has been to delay and to sabotage integration efforts until a court finally steps in and orders busing as a last resort. Then the white community and school officials scream bloody murder about "forced" busing, tensions increase, and nobody shows any concern about the kind of education the kids get. Boston is the classic example of this kind of situation, but other cities are about as callous in their treatment of white and black children. As New York City's Human Rights Commission pointed out: "The fact is that little has been done anywhere to develop practical strategies to cope with the daily challenges of integration to make it work. So there is a vicious cycle here: integration plans are never really implemented, school officials sabotage it and some racist parents and ambitious politicians whip up local feelings, busing is used where other measures might work as well, and then some sociologist steps in, does a study and announces that integration isn't working. Maybe it’s because it was never meant to work and because no one is trying to make it work. What too many people seem to be forgetting is that discussion about integrated schools is not an academic exercise about educational theory. Integrated schools are a constitutional right of white and black children alike. And the real issue behind the anti-busing smokescreen is whether or not the Constitution, the courts and the law will be upheld, or whether anarchy prevails.

"To Be Equal," published in the Winston-Salem Chronicle

This article, written by Civil Rights lawyer Vernon E. Jordan Jr., was published in several newspapers around the state, including the Black-owned Winston-Salem Chronicle, founded in 1974. Here, Jordan references the Coleman report, a study that investigated the differences in educational opportunities between racial groups in 1966.

Contributed to DigitalNC by Forsyth County Public Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Winston-Salem, N.C. (Forsyth County)

Racial Integration in K-12 Schools

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Background

In the early and mid-20th century, students in North Carolina attended schools based on their race. Despite segregationists’ “separate but equal” mantra, schools for white children were often better-resourced, with more money for buildings and school supplies. While schools for Black children usually received less money for textbooks, staff salaries, and facilities, they were still vibrant and close-knit communities. Students identifying as other races, including Native American students, were sometimes educated at Black schools and sometimes able to create schools for themselves, including the High Plains School in Person County. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that schools were no longer able to segregate students by race. However, it took North Carolina 17 years before our state’s schools met the conditions of the Brown v. Board ruling.

Between 1954-1972, lawmakers and community groups debated the best ways to racially integrate schools. Many white families opposed integration and protested by staying home from school or moving to newly-formed private schools. Meanwhile, many Black families worried about leaving the schools they knew, many of which were dissolved as part of integration. One of the largest debates about integration was about busing, a method where students would be bussed across their districts to create schools with racially-balanced student bodies. This method led to the Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), which confirmed busing as an appropriate strategy and served as the basis for cases around the country.

While the legacy of school integration is complex, this period affected the educational paths of many North Carolinians. One way to more fully understand how students’ lives were changed is to look at examples from yearbooks, photographs, and newspaper articles from this time. In particular, Black community newspapers and yearbooks from Black high schools offer several viewpoints about transitioning to majority-white schools.

Discussion Questions

  1. When did N.C. public schools become racially integrated? Was it in 1954 after Brown v. Board of Education? Was it in 1972, when the state finally met the requirements of the Brown v. Board ruling? Was it sometime in between or after?

  2. Take a look at Gohisca [1971] from Goldsboro High School and Charger [1971] from Wayne Country Day School. What differences do you see? How do the attitudes of students differ? What do these differences tell you about the motivations of private schools during this time period?

  3. Consider the two articles from The Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.) and the two yearbook excerpts from The Panther [1968] and The Pricean [1969]. What are some of the contrasting feelings coming from community members, school staff, and students? Why do you think each of these authors has these feelings?

  4. In his interview, Tony Brown says that he was glad he stayed at his majority Black school, saying, “We had a lot of very, very caring teachers and it was a smaller environment, nurturing environment.” Given the reactions of some white students and families toward integration, what do you think about Brown’s stance?

  5. School integration in the South sometimes began with one or a few Black students moving to an all-white school (like in the case of Gwendolyn Bailey). Take a moment to imagine yourself in their position. Would you go through with it? Why or why not?

  6. Take a look at The Hilltopper [1963]. This is a yearbook from the first year that Native American students had to attend Bethel Hill High School (previously an all-white school). What surprises you about this yearbook? What do you think this school year was like for students?

  7. If you were a N.C. lawmaker in 1954, what plans would you propose to integrate schools? Would you move all students into the white schools for their resources? Would you use buses to transport students and make the schools racially representative? Would you allow families to choose which schools they wanted to attend?

This primary source set was compiled by Sophie Hollis.

Updated October 2023