When Fears Overcome Opportunity

How Things Changed

I was in fifth grade in the Spring of 1971. I was all of eleven, playing sports, exploring woods, and imagining all sorts of scenarios through play. My cloistered world was about to change. In that spring, the Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools decision was handed down by the US Supreme Court declaring busing the recognized remedy to integrate the public schools.

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Our school shrank from 3 classrooms per grade level to 2 in one year.

Many of my friends left.

Many families at my elementary school chose to leave the city schools in 1971 even though Chattanooga would not begin busing until 1974 for my grade. Our school shrank from 3 classrooms per grade level to 2 in one year. Many of my friends left.

Those Who Stayed

There were families who chose to stay. Normal Park Elementary School had a small group of professional families who were determined to support the public schools. Once we went to Northside Junior High School, more families from other elementary schools joined ours. A dozen or so of us could have gone to private schools, but our parents kept us where we were.

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After desegregation began, friends were still friends, and we had good

and bad teachers. “The Wonder Years” remained intact.

Many of the white families who attended our neighborhood schools were unable to pick up and move to the county schools or pay private school tuition. Between 1970 and 1974, we remained an economically diverse school community. Friends were still friends, and we received a good education.

Defacto Segregation

The school community began to change within. In the fall of 1971, a third of the teachers left Normal Park. As I matriculated through junior high and high school, most of the teachers who taught my older siblings retired or moved on.

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Although there was some busing of white students to center city Chattanooga elementary

schools after 1974, most whites opted out and urban schools remained majority minority.

The response to the Swann decision, even more than Brown V. Board, resulted in the slow transformation back to segregated schools. When I graduated from Chattanooga High School in 1978, it was 50% white/black. By the time my little sister graduated in 1980, it was majority African American and before the school became an arts magnet in the 1990s, it was predominantly minority.

How An Eleven Year Old Saw this

As a fifth grader I knew nothing of what was ahead. What I did notice was that many friends were leaving Normal Park. I remember one night going into my parent’s bedroom and asking if I could go to a well-established private school with my friends. Dad calmly said no and assured me that many of my friends would remain. I wasn’t reassured because it seemed that friends were telling me about their parent’s intentions daily.

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Most families saw that busing was imminent and many who could pulled

their kids out of the city schools.

Normal Park was ostensibly segregated throughout my time there. Chattanooga had declared her schools integrated in the late 1960s hoping that would keep the courts happy. Most families saw that busing was imminent and many who could pulled their kids out of the city schools.

Parents Don’t Hang Around

I was not concerned about going to school with blacks. I was about to participate in my third year of little league baseball, which was becoming more and more diverse. I just didn’t understand why families were leaving my school.

What I learned then and would later experience as an educator in Charlotte, was that parents don’t really fight for their schools when the school community changes. Keeping their children safe from the bigoted perception of others was the priority.

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Eventually, this became no different and a new normal with diversity began to take shape.

As I recall, the year ended much in the same way it had every other year. I continued to play ball with the friends who would leave school that year, but as we all learned, friends move on. Eventually, desegregation enhanced my education. Many of my good friends stayed and I made new ones. My parents were right, and I was better for it.

School Desegregation Helped Shape Me

I taught and served as a school administrator in very diverse schools my entire career. When I arrived in Charlotte in 1982, I discovered a district that prioritized its diverse community. In the 1980s and 90s, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools had about 60% white and 40% black students. The school district maintained this breakdown in most schools.

As the pressures of growth and segregating demographic shifts developed, that diversity became strained. As the county grew to over 1 million residents, the school district moved toward magnet schools as a way meet federal court mandates regarding desegregation. In 1999, the courts ended mandated busing declaring Charlotte-Mecklenburg unitary.
There were 10 Title 1, high poverty schools, out of 184 that year. Charlotte now has 105 title 1 schools out of 186. (https://www.axios.com/local/charlotte/2024/05/17/timeline-school-segregation-charlotte-busing) (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/100_largest/table13.asp) (https://www.cmsk12.org/Page/771)

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Busing failed because the citizenry was unwilling to participate.

Despite the pride of many concerning the desegregation of the schools in the community, growth and a changing political landscape caused Charlotte-Mecklenburg to become the most segregated school district in North Carolina while the city of Charlotte was soon cited as one of the most segregated in the country. (https://ui.charlotte.edu/story/segregation-design/)

A school that has economic and racial diversity sustains a dynamic community of possibility and opportunity. I have observed this dynamic at every school where I have worked, and students were better for it. Busing failed because the citizenry was unwilling to participate. Our fears overcame our potential. A recommitment to our diverse enterprise would serve all students better.