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Old 09-23-2012, 09:04 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles area
14,017 posts, read 20,839,209 times
Reputation: 32530

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I'll start with my own memories. I am 68 years old, white, and went to school in a suburb of St. Louis. Following the supreme court decision in 1954, the schools were desegregated without fuss or ado, at least in that particular suburb. The "colored" schools were closed, and black students started attending the junior high (as it was called then) where I went in September, 1955, I think it was. I was in the seventh grade. It was all very matter-of-fact, no protests, no drama, no incidents (at least none of which I was aware).

I know other cities had experiences very different from the above; there was violence in some places, and in others the school boards dragged out the process for years. In a few places, the cities stopped running their public schools for a while to get around the ruling and everyone had to attend hastily organized private schools. And we all know about Little Rock, Arkansas.

So, I am hoping for some other stories. It would be helpful for you to give your age, race, and where you were at the time when posting.
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Old 09-23-2012, 09:19 PM
 
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
14,129 posts, read 31,133,994 times
Reputation: 6920
There was no school segregation in the Western U.S. so was irrelevant to my family. Seems like a foreign concept to me.
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Old 09-23-2012, 09:31 PM
NCN
 
Location: NC/SC Border Patrol
21,665 posts, read 25,510,098 times
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I am near to your age and lived in the mountains of North Carolina. I am sure it made a difference in some schools but we only had one mixed-race child in our entire high school. We also had a rule that if you did not like the school you would normally attend you were allowed to go to any school in our county you wanted to. The only difference was that your parents had to provide the transportation for your getting to school.

Guess you can tell I am white. Obama visited my then high school this year. His comment was that we were nice to people even if we didn't choose to vote for them. He was right. I was brought up to be nice to everybody; even the person begging on the street. The reason being is that when God has not given up on a person and therefore the person is still alive; we should not give up on them either and all humans have a right to be treated with respect.

I think President Obama and his supporters could learn a lot from the people in our school district.
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Old 09-24-2012, 09:16 AM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,618,735 times
Reputation: 36642
I went from an 100%-Wasp northern high school to a white university in the segregated south, to that was pretty seamless, to me. But the most brilliant, intellectual girl I ever knew in college had to do her senior HS year by correspondence courses, because the governor of Arkansas closed her high school. But I never actually participated in any desegregation in any schools I went to. The first time I ever sat in a classroom with black students was when I went back to college four years later in California.
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Old 09-24-2012, 01:50 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
6,793 posts, read 5,630,684 times
Reputation: 5660
I went to school Long AFTER the Brown vs BOE ruling but schools were still heavily segregated because of location... I distinctly remember BUSING in the 70s.. I think I was in 5th grade when BUSING hit my town. Instead of walking to school like I had always done, I had to get up early and ride a bus all the way across town to another school. After 2 years of this nonsense my parents opted to MOVE to a smaller town where there was only 1 school and 1 option and NO BUSES.
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Old 09-24-2012, 05:39 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,954 posts, read 59,942,524 times
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Yeah, those Catholic kids came to regular school then (the local parochial school closed down because of low enrollment).
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Old 09-25-2012, 01:17 AM
 
830 posts, read 1,717,981 times
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Very interesting thread, looking forward to hearing more responses.

(on a side note, I don't see why Obama is being brought into the thread).
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Old 09-25-2012, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Maryland
1,667 posts, read 9,357,228 times
Reputation: 1653
I'm 55 years old and when I was in school in the 1960s in W.Va., all our books had a ink-stamp on the inside front cover, "For White Schools Only." I never understood this since our school was red brick. My parents would say that when I get older, I'll understand. I still don't understand.
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Old 09-25-2012, 12:14 PM
 
35,956 posts, read 30,494,438 times
Reputation: 32236
Quote:
Originally Posted by mco65 View Post
I went to school Long AFTER the Brown vs BOE ruling but schools were still heavily segregated because of location... I distinctly remember BUSING in the 70s.. I think I was in 5th grade when BUSING hit my town. Instead of walking to school like I had always done, I had to get up early and ride a bus all the way across town to another school. After 2 years of this nonsense my parents opted to MOVE to a smaller town where there was only 1 school and 1 option and NO BUSES.

Thats what I remember. Im just 50 and this was in Dayton, Ohio. Started out it was a couple days a week we were bussed to other schools on the far side of town and those kids were bussed to our school. From what I remember the "idiots that be" said this was being done because the schools in the predominately black parts of the city were substandard. I never understood why they didnt just pour that money into the substandard schools. My family also moved and later the school system bussed kids full time from their home school, that they could easily walk a few blocks to, to a school requiring a 2 hr. bus ride requiring them to wait in the dark at 5:30 am to catch a bus. Siblings and friends were then having to attend different schools in different districts making it difficult if not impossible for most families to be involved in sports or any school activities.

I dont recall there ever being any trouble between the black kids and the white kids nor do I remember there being any difference in the physical schools or teachers. They went to great lengths to intergrate us, making sure our seating assignments were black, white, black, white. I think most of us kids felt awkward, out of place and maybe a little scared.

It would be interesting to hear a teachers perspective on this. I always got the impression that is was even more stressful on them.
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Old 09-25-2012, 09:43 PM
 
4,363 posts, read 7,024,590 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CAVA1990 View Post
There was no school segregation in the Western U.S. so was irrelevant to my family. Seems like a foreign concept to me.
What about this Segregated Schools in San Francisco
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