When I talk to people my age who grew up in the US, ANYWHERE in the US, they are shocked to learn that I never attended segregated schools. In fact,most of the time people don’t believe me. Surely, I am misremembering, they say.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v The Board of Education came in 1954. Ten years later, 98 percent of Black children in the South still attended segregated schools. Among the 2 percent who did not were students in Anderson County (TN) Schools, where I started first grade the year before. In the fourth grade I transferred to Clinton City Schools, where the high school was bombed in 1958 over the issue of integration. 

Campbell County (VA) Schools, where I transferred when my family moved to Lynchburg in 1972, closed its segregated black high school in 1969. It is incredible for me to realize that the students I graduated with in 1975 spent half of their public school careers in segregated schools. There were numerous small Christian Schools in existence in Lynchburg and Campbell County, many of which appeared to have been started as a way to circumvent desegregation requirements. (Oxymoron: “Christian” schools started to allow students to continue in segregated education.) Tuscaloosa (AL), where I lived as an adult from 1981 to 1984, was still under a federal court order related to the desegregation of the city schools. As the education reporter for The Tuscaloosa News, I covered courtroom proceedings, local board meetings, protest marches and sit-ins focused on removing the last vestiges of “separate but equal” educational opportunities for Black students. Tuscaloosa also had a number of small Christian Schools that were started in response to desegregation.

Durham (NC), where I have lived off and on since the mid-1980s, desegregated under a federal court order in 1971. As an employee of the state Department of Public Instruction from 1987-2017, I heard many stories about the years of desegregation from my coworkers, many of whom attended and taught in segregated schools. Today, many NC schools are experiencing resegregation as Charter Schools become more common in the state.

Why do I mention this? It has been on my mind for the last few days as protests and demonstrations go on all over the country. These protests started as a response to the use of unnecessary violence by law enforcement against Black people, and, in particular, against Black men. The situation is so complex, but I have no doubt that there is institutional racism. I have seen example after example of it in an educational setting. I must believe it exists in other places as well. 

I’m going to have to think about this a little more to try and understand it more fully and to see what part I can play in combatting it.

Pounds, Jessie (Aug. 12, 2012). “Preserving legacies of black segregated high schools in Lynchburg area,” The News & Advance, Downloaded from https://newsadvance.com/news/local/preserving-legacies-of-black-segregated-high-schools-in-lynchburg-area/article_9fc7ce4a-6e14-5d35-a06b-32ab03a9719b.html

Pruitt, Sarah (2020). “Brown v Board of Education: The First Step in the Desegraation of America’s Schools,” Downloaded from https://www.history.com/news/brown-v-board-of-education-the-first-step-in-the-desegregation-of-americas-schools

Rathbone, Rita (Aug. 12, 2016). “Choice and segragation in Durham, North Carolina.” Downloaded from https://educationpost.org/why-durham-public-schools-need-integration/

UPDATE 9/30: Check out “The Undoing of a Tennessee Town” in The Atlantic to learn more about the desegration of schools in my hometown of Clinton, TN.