Before school desegregation, most black students were educated in exclusively black schools. Today, 70% of black students are still educated in predominantly black schools. School desegregation, mandated in theory, has not yet been achieved in practice.
Class of Waldorf Negro Elementary School, Maryland (1941). Image courtesy of the National Archives.
This is sort of misleading because progress has indeed been made. The numbers show that there are more Black students in majority White schools than before the Brown v Board of Education decision.
Year Percent Black in Majority White Schools1954 0
1960 .1
1964 2.3
1967 13.9
1968 23.4
1970 33.1
1972 36.4
1976 37.6
1980 37.1
1986 42.9
1988 43.5
1991 39.2
1994 36.6
1996 34.7
1998 32.7
2000 31.0
2001 30.2
Source: Southern Education Reporting Service in Reed Sarratt, The Ordeal of Desegregation (New York: Harper & Row, 1966): 362; HEW
Education integration is now on a steady decline, however. As we all should know, much of the progress Blacks made after the Civil Rights Movement was reversed during the Reagan era.
Integration shafted the fuck outta us. It wasn’t all good for us.
And what’s missing in this picture is the Black teacher, Black administrator, Black community - all who truly CARED about Black children learning. Malcolm was right, we HAVE let our enemy “educate” our children. Where are those teachers and administrators who truly have Black children’s best interest at heart? Why are Black children still facing a public school system that sees them as the problem, not the curriculum, the teachers or the actual system itself?
(via fufuandsoup)
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