![Central Delta Academy, Inverness, MS](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Central_Delta_Academy%2C_Inverness%2C_MS.jpg)
Segregation academies are
private school
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
s in the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend
desegregated
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...
public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional,
and 1976, when the court
ruled similarly about private schools.
While many of these schools still existmost with low percentages of minority students even todaythey may not legally discriminate against students or prospective students based on any considerations of religion, race or ethnicity that serve to exclude non-white students. The laws that permitted their racially-discriminatory operation, including government subsidies and
tax exemption
Tax exemption is the reduction or removal of a liability to make a compulsory payment that would otherwise be imposed by a ruling power upon persons, property, income, or transactions. Tax-exempt status may provide complete relief from taxes, redu ...
, were invalidated by U.S. Supreme Court decisions. After ''
Runyon v. McCrary
''Runyon v. McCrary'', 427 U.S. 160 (1976), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court, which held that federal law prohibited private schools from discriminating on the basis of race.. Dissenting Justice Byron White argued that the l ...
'' (1976), all of these private schools were forced to accept
African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
students. As a result, segregation academies changed their admission policies, ceased operations, or merged with other private schools.
Most of these schools remain overwhelmingly white institutions, both because of their founding ethos and because tuition fees are a barrier to entry. In communities where many or most white students are sent to these private schools, the percentages of African-American students in tuition-free public schools are correspondingly elevated. For example, in
Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 2010, 92% of the students at
Lee Academy were white, while 92% of the students at
Clarksdale High School
Clarksdale High School (CHS) is the public high school of Clarksdale, Mississippi and a part of the Clarksdale Municipal School District.
History
Around the time of racial integration, circa the 1960s, there had been plans to build a new consoli ...
were black. The effects of this ''de facto'' racial segregation are compounded by the unequal quality of education produced in communities where whites served by former segregation academies seek to minimize tax levies for public schools.
History
The first segregation academies were created by white parents in the late 1950s in response to the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
ruling in ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' (1954), which required
public school boards
Board or Boards may refer to:
Flat surface
* Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat
** Plank (wood)
** Cutting board
** Sounding board, of a musical instrument
* Cardboard (paper product)
* Paperboard
* Fiberboard
** Hardboard, a t ...
to eliminate segregation "with all deliberate speed" (
Brown II
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
). At the time, segregation under
Jim Crow laws was still widely enforced in the South, where most adult blacks were still
disfranchised and excluded from politics.
The ''Brown'' ruling did not apply to private schools, so founding new academies gave white parents a way to continue to educate their children separately from blacks. In Virginia, the "
massive resistance" campaign led
Prince Edward County to close its public schools from 1959 to 1964; the only education in the county was a segregation academy, funded by state "tuition grants."
A 1972 report on
school desegregation
School integration in the United States is the process (also known as desegregation) of ending race-based segregation within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and rema ...
noted that segregation academies could usually be identified by the word "Christian" or "church" in the school's name.
The report observed that while individual
Protestant churches
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
were often deeply involved in the establishment of segregation academies,
Catholic dioceses usually indicated that their schools were not meant to be havens from desegregation.
Many segregation academies claimed they were established to provide a "Christian education", but the
sociologist Jennifer Dyer has argued that such claims were simply a "guise" for the schools' actual objective of allowing parents to avoid enrolling their children in racially integrated public schools.
Reasons why whites pulled their children out of public schools have been debated: whites insisted that "quality fueled their exodus", and blacks said "white parents refused to allow their children to be schooled alongside blacks". Scholars estimate that, across the nation, at least half a million white students were withdrawn from public schools between 1964 and 1975 to avoid mandatory desegregation.
[ In the 21st century, Archie Douglas, the headmaster of Montgomery Academy (founded as a segregation academy), said that he is sure "that those who resented the ]Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
or sought to get away from it took refuge in the academy".[ Archie Douglas, the headmaster of The Montgomery Academy, said that the school was started in 1959 in what he believed was a reaction to desegregation of public schools. He said, "I am sure that those who resented the civil rights movement or sought to get away from it took refuge in the academy. But, it's not 1959 anymore and The Montgomery Academy has a philosophy today that reflects the openness ... and utter lack of discrimination with regard to race or religion that was evident in prior decades."] As of 2014, the student body of The Montgomery Academy was 10% percent non-white.
IRS involvement and definitions
In 1969, parents of Mississippi black children brought suit to revoke tax-exemption status for non-profit segregation academies (''Green v. Connally''). They won a temporary injunction in the D.C. Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...
in early 1970 and the suit in June 1971. The United States government appealed to the Supreme Court, where the lower court's decision was summarily affirmed in '' Coit v. Green'' (1971). Meanwhile, on July 10, 1970, the Internal Revenue Service announced it could "no longer legally justify allowing tax-exempt status to private schools which practice racial discrimination
Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
." For a school to get or keep its tax-exempt status, it would have to publish a policy of non-discrimination and not practice overt discrimination. Many schools simply refused to comply. In the 1980s, Southern Republican Members of Congress such as Trent Lott
Chester Trent Lott Sr. (born October 9, 1941) is an American lawyer, author, and politician. A former United States Senator from Mississippi, Lott served in numerous leadership positions in both the United States House of Representatives and the ...
and Strom Thurmond began to pressure the Reagan administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
to halt revocation of tax-exempt status from segregation academies. In 1982, during congressional debate on the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, the administration considered support for such a policy, leading to what one of its aides called "our worst public-relations and political disaster yet."
A decade later, similarly aggrieved appellees argued once again in '' Allen v. Wright'' (1983) that the standards were too low. The appellees had asserted that "there are more than 3,500 racially segregated private academies operating in the country having a total enrollment of more than 750,000 children." The court considered whether the parents had standing to sue, and concluded not, because they did not allege that they or their children had applied to, been discouraged from applying to, or been denied admission to any private school or schools.[ Text of the '' Allen v. Wright'' ruling, Supreme Court of the United States.] Specifically, it ruled that citizens do not have standing
Standing, also referred to as orthostasis, is a position in which the body is held in an ''erect'' ("orthostatic") position and supported only by the feet. Although seemingly static, the body rocks slightly back and forth from the ankle in the s ...
to sue a federal government agency based on the influence that the agency's determinations might have on third parties (such as private schools). The judges noted the parents were in the posture of disappointed observers of the governmental process. The IRS would continue to enforce the regulations it had promulgated in 1970. Any school that was not tax-exempt in this period was likely a segregation academy, the standard for non-discrimination being low. Not many of the 3,500 appear in lists, if there were 3,500. After 1983, any school named in a judgement or IRS document in this period absolutely was. Many schools did not regain tax-exempt status until the 1990s.
By state
Virginia was an early adopter of techniques to establish and finance segregation academies. Virginia was the first state to respond to ''Brown'' with the establishment of segregation academies and was also the first to be told in federal court that segregation academies were unconstitutional (''Runyon v. McCrary
''Runyon v. McCrary'', 427 U.S. 160 (1976), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court, which held that federal law prohibited private schools from discriminating on the basis of race.. Dissenting Justice Byron White argued that the l ...
'' (1976)), leading to their decline. The state was a bellwether for other states. Eventually, five states—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia—defied the court's decision in ''Brown'' by 1970. Segregated private schools lost their tax-exempt status in '' Coit v. Green'' (1971). Between 1961 and 1971, non-Catholic Christian schools doubled their enrollments nationally. By 1969, 300,000 of 7,400,000 white students attended segregated school in eleven southern states.
Virginia
In Virginia, segregation academies were part of a policy of massive resistance declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. He worked to unite other white Virginia politicians and leaders in taking action to prevent school desegregation
Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...
after the ''Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' Supreme Court ruling in 1954.
In its September/October 1956 special session, the Virginia General Assembly
The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 16 ...
passed a series of laws known as the Stanley Plan to implement massive resistance. In January, Virginia's voters had approved an amendment to the state constitution to allow tuition grants to parents enrolling their children in private schools. Part of the Stanley Plan established tuition grants program, which allowed parents who refused to allow their children to attend desegregated schools funding so each could attend a private school of choice. In practice, this meant state support of newly established all-white private schools which became known as "segregation academies".
On February 18, 1958, the General Assembly passed (and Governor Almond signed) additional legislation protecting segregation, what the Byrd Organization called the "Little Rock Bill" (responding to President Eisenhower's use of federal powers to assist the court-ordered desegregation of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas). Since new segregation academy facilities often failed to meet construction, health and safety standards for public schools, these were also loosened.
Segregation academies opened in various Virginia cities and counties subject to desegregation lawsuits, including Arlington, Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
and Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
where Governor Almond had ordered the schools closed rather than comply with Federal court orders to desegregate. Arlington and Norfolk desegregated peacefully in February 1959. In Arlington, many (if not most) white students remained in the desegregated schools. However, that was not the case in Norfolk and other areas such as Richmond where whites largely abandoned the public schools for segregation academies and other private schools, home schooling
Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an onlin ...
, or moved to predominately white suburbs. Today, more than a half-century after school desegregation, largely due to white flight
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...
, the Richmond City and Norfolk Public Schools
The Norfolk Public Schools, also known as Norfolk City Public Schools, are the school division responsible for public education in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. ...
are the school divisions with the most racially and economically isolated schools in Virginia.
Segregation academies in Warren
A warren is a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows. Domestic warrens are artificial, enclosed establishment of animal husbandry dedicated to the raising of rabbits for meat and fur. The term evolved from the medieval A ...
and Prince Edward Counties and the City of Norfolk are discussed below, as examples of why even in the fall of 1963, only 3,700 black pupils or 1.6% attended school with whites. NAACP litigation had resulted in some desegregation by the fall of 1960 in eleven localities, and the number of at least partially desegregated districts had slowly risen to 20 in the fall of 1961, 29 in the fall of 1962, and 55 (out of 130 school districts) in 1963.
Warren County also planned to integrate its only high school, Warren County High School, but Governor Almond closed the school (along with schools in Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
and Norfolk) in the fall of 1958. Education continued in private and church facilities for that school year. By the fall of 1959, the John S. Mosby Academy
John S. Mosby Academy was a private high school in Front Royal, Virginia, established in 1959 when the city's schools were ordered to desegregate following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. It was named for John S. Mos ...
(1-12) was constructed and opened as an all-white school. A public high school for black students was built and opened (Criser High School
Criser High School was an African American school accommodating grades 1–12 constructed in 1959 in the town of Front Royal, Virginia. Its opening occurred the same year 22 African American students integrated the all-white Warren County High Sch ...
), and Warren County High School reopened with a significantly reduced white student population and 22 black students. Criser operated until 1966, and Mosby operated through the 1968–69 school year.
When faced with an order to integrate, Prince Edward County closed its entire school system in September 1959, and kept county schools closed until 1964, as it kept litigating (although ''Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
''Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County'' (Docket number: Civ. A. No. 1333; Case citation: 103 F. Supp. 337 (1952)) was one of the five cases combined into '' Brown v. Board of Education'', the famous case in which the U.S. Supreme ...
'' had been a companion case to ''Brown''). The newly-founded private Prince Edward Academy operated as the de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
school system for white students. It enrolled K-12 students at several facilities throughout the county. Many black students were forced to move in with relatives in other counties, attend makeshift schools in church basements, or move to northern states to live with host families through a program of the Society of Friends in order to gain education. Even after public schools re-opened, Prince Edward Academy remained segregated as discussed below.
In Norfolk, churches and other organizations offered classes, teachers from the shuttered public schools formed tutorial groups, and classes were also held in private homes. The Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary
The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William I ...
(now Old Dominion University
Old Dominion University (Old Dominion or ODU) is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary and is now one of the largest universities in Virginia w ...
) provided classes for some high school students. Other students from Norfolk attended schools in the neighboring cities of Hampton
Hampton may refer to:
Places Australia
*Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia
*Hampton, New South Wales
*Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region
* Hampton, Victoria
Canada
* Hampton, New Brunswick
*Ha ...
, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...
and Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
. Some parents sent their children to live with relatives in other parts of Virginia or in other states. The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties
The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties was a political group dedicated to strict segregation in Virginia schools. In June 1955 it published its ''Plan for Virginia''. The words of Richard Crawford, president of the Defenders ...
founded the Tidewater Educational Foundation to create a private school for white students in Norfolk. The Tidewater Academy opened as a segregation academy on October 22, 1958, with 250 white students with classes meeting in local churches.
Although on January 19, 1959, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals struck down the new Virginia law that closed schools before integration, as contrary to a public schooling provision in the state constitution (and a three-judge federal panel struck down other provisions of the Stanley Plan on the same day, (the Virginia state holiday honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson), individual state tuition grants to parents continued, allowing them to patronize segregation academies.
In 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in ''Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
''Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County'', 377 U.S. 218 (1964), is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia's decision to close all local, pu ...
'' that Virginia's tuition grants where the public schools had been closed for reasons of race (such as in Prince Edward County) violated the U.S. Constitution. This decision finally effectively ended massive resistance within state governments, and dealt some segregation academies a fatal blow. Later rulings put the academies' tax exemption status in jeopardy if they practiced racial discrimination.
In 1978, Prince Edward Academy lost its tax exempt status. In 1986, it changed its admission policy to allow black students to attend but few black students can afford the tuition to attend the school, which today is known as the Fuqua School. All other Virginia segregation academies have either closed, adopted non-racial discrimination policies, or merged with other schools that already had non-discrimination policies in place. Because the Catholic Church had desegregated its schools before ''Brown'', the Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
Academy (a segregation academy implicitly disavowing that Catholic policy by its title), merged with Blessed Sacrament High School, a nearby Catholic High School, to become Blessed Sacrament-Huguenot. In 1985 the Bollingbrook School, another private school originally founded as a segregation academy for white students in 1958 merged with a nearby Catholic High School in Petersburg, Gibbons High School, to become St. Vincent de Paul High School.
Most segregation academies founded in Virginia during "Massive Resistance" are still thriving more than a half century later and some like Hampton Roads Academy
Hampton Roads Academy is a private, independent, co-educational, day school in Newport News, Virginia serving 644 students in grades Pre-K through twelve, and part of the Tidewater Conference of Independent Schools. HRA is accredited through the ...
, the Fuqua School, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy
Nansemond-Suffolk Academy (NSA) is a private school, founded as a segregation academy in 1966 in Suffolk, Virginia. NSA has two campuses. The Main Campus (adjacent to downtown Suffolk) includes 166,000 square feet of educational space situated ...
and Isle of Wight Academy continue to expand in the 21st century. Enrollment at Isle of Wight Academy now stands at approximately 650 students, the most ever enrolled at the school. In 2016 Nansemond Suffolk Academy opened a second campus, that includes an additional 22,000 square foot building for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 3. All of these schools had officially adopted non-discrimination policies and begun admitting non-white students by the end of the 1980s and like other private schools, are now eligible for federal education money through what are known as Title programs that flow through public school districts. However, few blacks can afford the high cost of tuition to send their children to these private schools. In some cases their association with " old money" and past discrimination still cause some tension in the community, especially among non-whites and students of the local public schools. These racist past histories may cause black parents who can afford the tuition to be reluctant to enroll their children in these schools.
The abandonment of public schools by most whites in Virginia's rural counties that lie within the Black Belt and white flight from inner cities to suburbs after the failure of "Massive Resistance" has ultimately led to increasingly racially and economically isolated public schools in Virginia. As of 2016 there were 74,515 students in these isolated schools, including 17 percent of all black students in Virginia’s public schools and 8 percent of all Hispanic students. Many of these schools are inner city schools located in Richmond, Norfolk, Petersburg, Roanoke, and Newport News
Newport News () is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the 5th most populous city in Virginia and 140th most populous city in the Uni ...
. By contrast, less than 1 percent of Virginia's non-Hispanic white students attended these isolated schools.,
Mississippi
In Mississippi, many of the segregation academies were first established in the black-majority Mississippi Delta region in northwestern Mississippi. The Delta has historically had a very large majority-black population, related to the history of the use of slave labor
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
on cotton plantations. The potential for integration resulted in white parents' establishing segregation academies in every county in the Delta. Many academies are still operating, from Indianola, Mississippi to Humphreys County. These schools began to accept black students later in the 20th century, although many of them still enroll relatively small numbers of black students. In a region with low incomes among blacks, many African-American parents cannot afford the private schools. At least one school in Mississippi, Carroll Academy, receives substantial funding from the segregationist Council of Conservative Citizens
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC or CCC) is an American white supremacist organization. Founded in 1985, it advocates white nationalism, and supports some paleoconservative causes. In the organization's statement of principles, it st ...
. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett
Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898November 6, 1987) was the Governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a Southern Democrat who supported racial segregation.
Early life
Background and learning
Born in Standing Pine in Leake Count ...
said in September 1962, "I submit to you tonight, no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor".
Arkansas
Between 1966 and 1972, at least 32 segregation academies were established in Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
. By 1972, about 5,000 white students attended such schools.
Arkansas is one of twelve states that have not adopted the Blaine Amendment to their state constitutions. The amendment forbids direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation. Many segregation academies have since adopted curricula with a "Christian world view".
Louisiana
The mandated integration of public schools in Washington Parish (1969) and St. Tammany Parish (1969), and the did so for Tensas Parish (1970), Claiborne Parish (1970), and Jackson Parish (1969).
Alabama
Alabama, like Mississippi, largely ignored the 1954 ruling of ''Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
''. In 1958, a conflict over segregation in city parks brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Montgomery. The city closed its parks; King recommended that black parents attempt to enroll their children in city schools, expecting to establish cases testing the Alabama Pupil Placement Act. Montgomery Academy was the first segregation academy established in Alabama; others followed in the late 1960s.
North Carolina
Following the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' decision in 1954, Governor William B. Umstead established a committee to consider the effects of complying the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. The bi-racial committee made up of blacks and whites reported to the North Carolina General Assembly, General Assembly that desegregation “throughout the state cannot be accomplished and should not be attempted.” Luther Hodges became governor in 1955, and although opposed to integration, he formed a new committee to study the issue, because the Court had ruled that school desegregation must happen “with all deliberate speed.” When it became clear that the federal government was not going to force the issue, the state began to look for ways to circumvent the Supreme Court, using legal means, while avoiding the outright defiance of court orders that was taking place in Virginia where the legislature had adopted a policy of massive resistance.
This committee established the Pearsall Plan, named after its chairman, Thomas J. Pearsall of Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Rocky Mount. In 1956 the Pearsall Plan established a system of local control, freedom of choice, and school vouchers. The Pearsall Plan also gave school districts the option of shutting down schools by public referendum if they were faced with a desegregation order. The freedom-of-choice system allowed students to attend the school their parents wanted them to attend, and the voucher system allowed parents to use state money to support their child’s education in a private school. As in other southern states a number of private segregation academies were founded.
In 2019 the North Carolina State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the conversion of Halifax County, North Carolina, Halifax County’s private Hobgood Academy, founded in 1969 as a segregation academy, to a public charter school. Hobgood’s student population is 88 percent white, while only 4 percent of those attending the Halifax County public Schools are white. This had led to concerns by some teachers that while charter schools in some states have helped low-income students improve academically, in North Carolina they have primarily been used as a means for whites to opt out of traditional public schools.
South Carolina
In South Carolina, where private schools have existed since the 1800s, there were no fully racially integrated private schools before 1954. Some 200 private schools were created between 1963 and 1975; private school enrollment hit a peak of 50,000 in 1978. In Clarendon County, South Carolina, Clarendon County, for example, the private academy Clarendon Hall was established in late 1965, after four black students enrolled in a previously all-white public school in the fall term. By 1969, only 281 white students were left in the public school system, and only 16 white students were in public schools when they officially desegregated a year later.[Burton, Vernon and Lewie Reece. "The Palmetto Revolution: School Desegregation in South Carolina." In ''With all Deliberate Speed; Implementing Brown v. Board of Education'', ed. Brian J. Daugherity and Charles C. Bolton, 59-91. Fayetteville, Ark.: The University of Arkansas Press, 2008.]
Texas
Texas was an early opponent of desegregation. In 1956, Mansfield school desegregation incident, blacks were turned away from Mansfield High School in defiance of ''Brown'' and other federal orders to integrate. In Dallas, for example, the Dallas Independent School District subdivided itself into six subdistricts, each of which was "one race" (more than ninety percent white or black). The Texas Education Agency was ordered in November 1970 to desegregate Texas public schools (''United States v. Texas''). The state did not offer any financial assistance to private schools as Virginia, Mississippi, and Alabama had.
List of schools founded as segregation academies
A partial list of segregation academies includes the following:
In federal law
''Green v. Connally'' (1971) set the standard by which the Internal Revenue Service identifies a segregation academy, a so-called "Paragraph (1) School". The IRS must deny exemption to schools:
which have been determined in adversary or administrative proceedings to be racially discriminatory; or were established or expanded at or about the time the public school districts in which they are located or which they serve were desegregating, and which cannot demonstrate that they do not racially discriminate in admissions, employment, scholarships, loan programs, athletics, and extracurricular programs.
See also
* The "Southern Manifesto", a document written in 1956 by legislators in the United States Congress opposed to racial integration in public places
* ''Runyon v. McCrary
''Runyon v. McCrary'', 427 U.S. 160 (1976), was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court, which held that federal law prohibited private schools from discriminating on the basis of race.. Dissenting Justice Byron White argued that the l ...
'' (1976): U.S. Supreme Court affirms private schools may not discriminate due to race based on 42 U.S.C. 1981.
* '' Allen v. Wright'', a 1984 U. S. Supreme Court case challenging public subsidy for private schools that are effectively segregated.
Further reading
* Felton, Emmanuel, "The Secessionist Movement in Education," ''The Nation,'' Sept. 25, 2017, pp. 12–24.
* Rooks, Noliwe
"Cindy Hyde-Smith Is Teaching Us What Segregation Academies Taught Her,"
''New York Times,'' Nov. 28, 2018.
References
External links
"The Ground Beneath Our Feet" website
*
*
*
*[http://go.vcu.edu/peeples/ Edward H. Peeples Prince Edward County (Va.) Public Schools Collection] photographs, documents, and maps exploring the history of the Prince Edward County school segregation issues of the 1950s and 1960s, from the collection of th
VCU Libraries.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Segregation Academies
History of Virginia
History of Arkansas
History of Mississippi
School segregation in the United States
African-American history of Virginia
African-American history of Arkansas
African-American history of Mississippi
Civil rights movement
Segregation academies,
Mississippi education-related lists