The busing issue is based on one unavoidable fact.

[guillaumeb]

Busing was a response to the brutal segregation of the schools in the North and the South.

If the racism and inequality and hatred had not been so brutally obvious, busing would have been unnecessary.

Busing was a response to the fact that non-white students were treated as third class citizens.

[democratisphere]

1. Bussing never worked and everyone hated it. Equality in education

would have come along without bussing and upsetting everyone's life.

[hedda_foil]

2. When would it have come along? Because it's nearly 50 years later and we're nowhere close.

[Kahuna7]

4. When? When communities offered voluntary busing. When it became a choice not a mandate. nt

[dawg day]

53. Do I think Jackson MS would offer voluntary busing?

Really, how far do we want to go to make the best of a Biden gaffe? I really don't think that Biden would want that sort of defense, as it kind of connects us all to Lester Maddox, standing in the schoolhouse door with an axe handle to assert 'local control."

We should really let this go. Civil rights and integration and desegregation were among the most important movements of the 20th century. There was a lot of pain and anguish involved. The pain of the Central High School 9 -- kids abused, bullied, spat on for years-- was something that busing was meant to alleviate, so that it wouldn't always be tiny numbers of black kids integrating a school surrounded by hatred and conflict. That really was the alternative in many towns because of housing segregation-- you would have (as in my town) a few black kids and a thousand white kids in this one school, and 120 black kids and no white kids in the other school, and you know which school got most of the funding.

Sorry-- I just remember the time BEFORE busing. It was worse. Much, much worse.

[dawg day]

57. Why are you saying that? Who are you saying it to?

What would you have done in response to this?

[customerserviceguy]

71. That picture

is not from the 1970's. The pattern of stars on the flag are clearly a 48 star pattern, my guess is that photo is from the time of Brown vs. Board of Education in the mid-1950's

[StarfishSaver]

73. They didn't claim it was from the 1970s

But it IS a picture depicting the massive white resistance to school integration - the kind of resistance that made busing necessary after white school districts and white families refused to voluntarily comply with school desegregation orders.

Now here's a picture from the 1970s taken during protests when white parents upset that their children staged peaceful protests.

Oh, wait a minute - these don't look like distressed parents and these weren't peaceful protests. They included white parents who claimed to be so worried that their children were being sent into dangerous "slums" that they threw rocks at and even tried to tip over buses carrying black children into their neighborhoods.

As I've said, it wasn't the bus, it was us.

[customerserviceguy]

74. That is a relevant photo

But, Biden was not responsible for anything political during the 1950's, and the inclusion of that picture in this thread was used to attack him for his positions in the 1970's.

[StarfishSaver]

76. No. The point of the photo as I saw it was to ask someone who said

"feel that strongly about forced busing, maybe we should put that on our platform and how that works out for us" how they would respond to that photo - a perfectly logical and pointed quesrion. The inclusion of the picture had nothing to do with Biden at all and certainly wasn't an attack on him.

It's really strange to me how some people are furious with Harris for being offended by Biden's comments yet are so quick to show offense and accuse everyone under the sun of attacking him - as if Harris has absolutely no right to be offended by anything Biden says while pretty much anything anyone says to, about or even in the same thread as Biden is cause for people to take the deepest and most grievous offense.

[emmaverybo]

77. Observant and quick.

[dawg day]

86. My point was that THIS-- what the picture showed- came before busing

Busing might not have been a great policy in every circumstances, but nothing is. It was not evil, however. It was an attempt, however flawed, to fix the evil that is shown in the picture.

All we're trying to say is... to defend a candidate, we don't need to go to the point of saying something that seems to imply desegregation was easy and local communities were congenial about it. Mr. Biden certainly wouldn't say that, I'm pretty sure.

We can just say, "That's not what he meant." And maybe explain where the candidate is NOW, which is definitely more important.

No one from that period came out of it without some damage. We can learn from it, and one thing I want to learn is there are no perfect people (well, Ruby Bridges is most of the way there . LBJ did massively good things for the elderly and poor and ramrodded civil rights legislation through. He also continued a terrible imperialist war, in part, perhaps, to "pay for" the social advancements. Almost everyone had to make big compromises and make morally ambiguous alliances. These might include political and personal "adjustments", like voting for this to trade for a vote on that, or sending a child to private school rather than the public school across town.

Mavis Staples wisdom-- important now too!

[Kahuna7]

103. I don't have to answer to you. What would you have done? Do you. nt

[UncleTomsEvilBrother]

102. To be honest...

...I would venture to believe that you would vote against it before Biden does. In my heart of hearts, Biden regrets that vote. You all defending him...not so much.

[KitSileya]

75. According to VP Biden, we should apparently let these things be up to the states

States' rights having worked so incredibly well in American history...

(I wonder if he is of the same opinion when it comes to voting, abortion, and other contentious issues?)

[Thekaspervote]

79. well.. why don't we ask some REAL experts about Biden ...John Lewis and Jim Clyburn to start

Snarky nasty comment on your part

[MichMan]

82. Why did you reference Jackson Michigan ?

Curious as to why you specifically called out Jackson Michigan as your example of segregated city?

[dawg day]

88. That's where Medgar Evers did his integration activism and was assassinated for it-

So when I think of desegregation, I think of how much was sacrificed (willingly) for it there in Jackson.


And (a more personal reason) it's where Walter Payton went to college: Jackson State College.

[MichMan]

92. In Michigan???

Lived here all my life and never heard anything about any of that happening here , and there is no Jackson State College in Michigan.

Are you sure you don't mean Jackson (MS) Mississippi ??

We are very proud of Motown here though

[dawg day]

95. Oh, sorry, you're right. Jackson MS

Three states beginning with MI!
Mississippi.

[cannabis_flower]

110. Even after integration..

Many whites that were able found ways to avoid having their children integrate. After integration white parents who had means sent their children to private schools. Many of them were Catholic or Christian school. Also, there is a trend for people to homeschool their children. While some homeschoolers are not trying to separate their children from other races a lot of them are. So now we have a situation where there are still many schools that don't reflect their neighborhoods because the white kids go to private or charter school or are homeschooled.

For example the school I work at the most has about 95% Hispanic kids, probably about 3% black kids and about 1% white kids and 1% Asian kids. I know there are a lot more white kids living in the area around me. They live in the gated communities and in certain neighborhoods in the district.

[guillaumeb]

5. If anything, it is worse.

In the Chicago area, the south part of the city saw a mass exodus of white families to escape integrated schools and neighborhoods.

Small farm towns on the outer edge of Chicago went from 5,000 residents in 1965 to over 60,000 residents in 2010 because these racists refused to live in integrated communities.

[emmaverybo]

26. When substantial investment was made in community schools to provide equal quality in

education as well as “fix,’” sometimes literally, years of neglect and inequality. This might have
meant building new schools, attracting better-trained and diverse teachers, offering a wider range of educational and enrichment programs, filling staff shortages, after-school programs, and student services.

I don’t know if forced busing, until later in its implementation, actually was a vehicle for greater
social justice or integration. Many other ways from inter-mural sports to creative programs in which students from different areas could come together to produce plays or make music, debates etc., could have been effective in modeling an integrated society. We are, as a nation, still not
fully integrated, despite there being more, though not enough, equal opportunity.

Magnet schools have done a good job.

[guillaumeb]

3. But it has not.

There is no equality in education. And many whites started special schools to escape integration.

And many whites moved out of cities to all white suburbs for the same reason.

Absent segregation, and absent the gross inequalities, busing would have been unnecessary.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Wait what

Peddle 'everyone' elsewhere. I'm glad I was bussed to another part of the school district for the purposes of racial integration. Cost me an hour a day commuting, but small price to pay for a more balanced upbringing that I would not otherwise have gotten.

[happyaccident]

15. I grew up in a suburb in L.A., mostly white and middle class

The exposure and friends I made who were bused in from East L.A. and Compton helped me escape the mostly racist and cruel assholes I grew up with who just happened to share my skin color. What's kinda funny is that my racist asshole father put me in that program, thinking it was a science magnet course(which it was and how they sold it). I do remember being asked to walk with them when they went off campus for lunch. They needed a white boy to deal with the cops and truant officers. That's how I learned about racism. And my friends liked going to my school because they didn't have to worry about getting shot.

[AtheistCrusader]

29. The program made my parents extremely angry.

Especially my dad, whom, was a racist among other things.

Sadly, my closest friends from that time period were claimed by violence, but I still wouldn't have traded the experience for any other school arrangement. I would never have gotten the opportunity if not for district mandatory bussing.

[delisen]

33. I did not hate it. We had it for only one generation of students

where I lived it brought people together. One high school kept its student body at 50/50. Many children benefited.

[sacto95834]

45. Do you mean White people hated it?

For many black children it was a chance to attend an academically gifted school that promised advanced classes in various subjects and possibly a means to go to college.

[onetexan]

54. correct K&R

[Bettie]

87. When will that start?

this equality in education? Soon?

[Celerity]

93. 'Forced busing' didn't fail. Desegregation is the best way to improve our schools.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/23/forced-busing-didnt-fail-desegregation-is-the-best-way-to-improve-our-schools/?utm_term=.ca606c37bcac

snip

Since the Reagan administration’s “A Nation at Risk” report pronounced that schools across the country were failing, every president has touted a new plan to close the racial academic achievement gap: President Obama installed Race to the Top; George W. Bush had No Child Left Behind; and Clinton pushed Goals 2000. The nation has commissioned studies, held conferences and engaged in endless public lamentation over how to get poor students and children of color to achieve at the level of wealthy white students — as if how to close this opportunity gap was a mystery. But we forget that we’ve done it before. Racial achievement gaps were narrowest at the height of school integration.

U.S. schools have become more segregated since 1990, and students in major metropolitan areas have been most severely divided by race and income, according to the University of California at Los Angeles’s Civil Rights Project. Racially homogenous neighborhoods that resulted from historic housing practices such as red-lining have driven school segregation. The problem is worst in the Northeast — the region that, in many ways, never desegregated — where students face some of the largest academic achievement gaps: in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

More than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, federal education policies still implicitly accept the myth of “separate but equal,” by attempting to improve student outcomes without integrating schools. Policymakers have tried creating national standards, encouraging charter schools, implementing high-stakes teacher evaluations and tying testing to school sanctions and funding. These efforts sought to make separate schools better but not less segregated. Ending achievement and opportunity gaps requires implementing a variety of desegregation methods – busing, magnet schools, or merging school districts, for instance – to create a more just public education system that successfully educates all children.

Public radio’s “This American Life” reminded us of this reality in a two-part report this summer, called “The Problem We All Live With.” The program noted that, despite declarations that busing to desegregate schools failed in the 1970s and 1980s, that era actually saw significant improvement in educational equity. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress began in the early 1970s, there was a 53-point gap in reading scores between black and white 17-year-olds. That chasm narrowed to 20 points by 1988. During that time, every region of the country except the Northeast saw steady gains in school integration. In the South in 1968, 78 percent of black children attended schools with almost exclusively minority students; by 1988, only 24 percent did. In the West during that period, the figure declined from 51 percent to 29 percent.

But since 1988, when education policy shifted away from desegregation efforts, the reading test score gap has grown — to 26 points in 2012 — with segregated schooling increasing in every region of the country.

Research has shown that integration is a critical factor in narrowing the achievement gap. In a 2010 research review, Harvard University’s Susan Eaton noted that racial segregation in schools has such a severe impact on the test score-gap that it outweighs the positive effects of a higher family income for minority students. Further, a 2010 study of students’ improvements in math found that the level of integration was the only school characteristic (vs. safety and community commitment to math) that significantly affected students’ learning growth. In an analysis of the landmark 1966 “Coleman Report,” researchers Geoffrey Borman and Maritza Dowling determined that both the racial and socioeconomic makeups of a school are 1¾-times more important in determining a student’s educational outcomes than the student’s own race, ethnicity or social class.

snip



The City That Believed in Desegregation. Integration isn't easy, but Louisville, Kentucky, has decided that it's worth it

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/the-city-that-believed-in-desegregation/388532/

snip

The Supreme Court decided against Jefferson County, ruling in favor of a parent who argued that her son’s bus ride was too long. But in the years since, the district has found other creative ways of keeping its schools diverse. Today, the Louisville area is one of the few regions in the country that still buses students among urban and suburban neighborhoods. Jefferson County Public Schools is 49 percent white, 37 percent black, and 14 percent Latino and other ethnic and racial groups.

The county, which borders Indiana on the south, spreads across 400 square miles and encompasses census tracts in which more than half of the population lives below the poverty level, and tracts in which less than 10 percent does. But there are no struggling inner-city schools here—the city and county schools are under the same district, and the most sought-after high school within it, duPont Manual, is located near downtown.

Indeed, it could be argued that Louisville, an economically vibrant city in a highly conservative and segregated state, is a success today in large part because of its integrated schools and the collaborations among racial and economic groups that have come as a result. “Our PTA president will drive downtown into neighborhoods she probably would not have gone to, to pick up kids to bring to her house for sleepovers,” said Jessica Rosenthal, the principal at Hawthorne Elementary. “I just don’t know how likely that is to happen in a normal school setting.”

snip

The integration plan in Jefferson County and Louisville might not be perfect, but the very fact that the region is still trying to work together and provide equal opportunity to all of its students makes it stand out, said Gary Orfield, of the Civil Rights Project. When most other regions have given up, or fought integration plans with every resource, Louisville has continued to strive for diversity. In 2012, for example, half of the 14 candidates running for Jefferson County School Board ran on a platform of replacing the school-assignment policy with one that would have let students attend their neighborhood schools. All seven candidates were defeated at the polls

That conscious commitment to diversity indicates that Louisville is still thinking about how to try and make things fair, Orfield said. “School integration was never meant to be the only solution, but it is it is an essential and necessary element, they’ve at least kept that going, in spite of all kinds of problems over the years,” Orfield said. “They believe it works, not perfectly but a lot better than the alternatives.” It’s possible that commitment to diversity is a result of the integration that was forced on the region, in the 1970s. Now, people who grew up in integrated schools want the same for their children.


snip

[Chitown Kev]

121. When?

There's certainly vast inequalities in the education system now and...point of fact, the North is actually more segregated than the South wrt public schools.

[LovingA2andMI]

6. This and here is the history....

"Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, case in which, on April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld busing programs that aimed to speed up the racial integration of public schools in the United States.

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, because of racially segregated housing patterns and resistance by local leaders, many schools remained as segregated in the late 1960s as they were at the time of the Brown decision.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, in the mid-1960s less than 5 percent of African American children attended integrated schools. Indeed, busing was used by white officials to maintain segregation. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), on behalf of Vera and Darius Swann, the parents of a six-year-old child, sued the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district to allow their son to attend Seversville Elementary School, the school closest to their home and then one of Charlotte’s few integrated schools. James McMillan, the federal district judge in the case, ruled in favour of the Swanns and oversaw the implementation of a busing strategy that integrated the district’s schools. McMillan’s decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld it. The busing strategy was adopted elsewhere in the United States and played an instrumental role in integrating U.S. public schools."

https://www.britannica.com/event/Swann-v-Charlotte-Mecklenburg-Board-of-Education

[guillaumeb]

8. I will read the link, and thank you for it.

And THIS is key:

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. However, because of racially segregated housing patterns and resistance by local leaders, many schools remained as segregated in the late 1960s as they were at the time of the Brown decision.

The US civil war was 100 years in the past at this point, but the same racial attitudes were there. Sometimes under the surface, sometimes not so much.

[LovingA2andMI]

10. No Problem...

And You're Welcome.

[KitSileya]

78. Just heard Professor Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham University

say that American schools today are *more* segregated today than 50 years ago. That was on the BBC History Hit podcast, so I don't have sources or statistics at hand, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is true. While Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas was in 1954, many schools didn't get integrated until the late 60's, early 70's. 'Remember the Titans' is about a school being desegregated in Virginia in 1971, for heaven's sake! One Virginian county closed all public schools for 5 years rater than desegregate.

Heck, we know that Trump was elected by white men and women who decided racism was more important than national integrity, prosperity, and safety. Economic anxiety has been thoroughly debunked as the reason they voted for him, despite the protestations of the junior Senator from Vermont and others. Why some Democratic candidates think that race and "identity politics" isn't important and should be left in the past is beyond me. And thinking that a friendly (white) face will miraculously get the GOP and McConnell to cooperate is as bonkers as thinking millions demanding things outside Congress in a revolution will.

[guillaumeb]

97. Well stated.

Racism is foundational to US capitalism. In my view, and speaking as a supporter of Bernie Sanders in 2016, Sanders' biggest error was failing to recognize how foundational racism is to any analysis, class based or not, of US capitalism.

[bluewater]

7. Biden's problen is that he worked with known racists to oppose bussing.

Whatever his personal motivations were, Biden worked with out and out racists to oppose bussing.

Those racists did not want bussing because they did not want to desegregate their schools at all.

Biden should apologize now for working with those racists to help them oppose bussing, not talking how civil he was to them.

You lie down with dogs, you get fleas.

[guillaumeb]

9. Some had other reasons to oppose busing.

Biden among them. But the primary reason for the opposition to busing, in my view, was that it enforced integration.

[UniteFightBack]

12. This 'ISSUE' was a political maneuver by Harris. Period. nt

[guillaumeb]

14. The "issue" is based on actual history and fact.

If it had not existed, she could not have raised it.

If it did not still persist, it would not be relevant.

[UniteFightBack]

22. She created this issue on the back of Biden to exploit. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

24. Are you suggesting she has a time machine?

Because, you know, that might be another good reason to vote for her.

[guillaumeb]

27. Nicely done.

If she does, can she go back and stop Fred Trump from marrying Donnie's mother?

[AtheistCrusader]

30. It is refreshing

to see you outside that other group we hang out in so much. I didn't realize this was your thread at all.

[guillaumeb]

32. Yes, it is.

I hope you liked the thread.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. It is quite interesting!

[UniteFightBack]

38. Were we talking about busing yesterday? Are you taking the word 'created' literally.

[AtheistCrusader]

43. It came up, over the political character of a candidate.

It is revealing in two ways; one that it happened, and one in how it was handled in the current moment.

There was a right way to handle this. I would argue Biden didn't choose it. We'll see how it goes. I think Harris was right to bring it up.
https://www.businessinsider.com/newly-uncovered-letters-show-biden-opposed-school-busing-in-1970s-2019-6

This in no way dooms Biden's candidacy, but it will, I think, have to be dealt with.

[UniteFightBack]

49. Hey let's just keep doing the work for the pukes and we can send someone into the general

limping, bloodied and barely breathing. Also it didn't 'just happen'...she made it happen. She made it come up...she had this all ready to go. I don't like it and I'm not going to like it from anybody...at least not this time around.

I'm also not into purity tests. I don't give a shit about Biden from 50yrs ago I don't care about Harris and the truancy program or anything to do with her record. The Democrats could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and I'm not going to care!!

[marylandblue]

94. I don't care if a Democrat shoots someone on 5th avenue either.

But I do care if they get away with it. In Biden's case, it really didn't help him to mention that he was in the vicinity of a shootout on 5th Avenue 40 years ago.

[AtheistCrusader]

144. If you don't want candidates that know how to play to win, what's the point of showing up to the

general election?

However 'limping, bloodied and barely breathing' you think this makes Biden, wait till you see what Trump, his surrogates and supporters are going to do.

At this point, I've selected Warren, because I think she's the best on the field, but I expect this process will change many times. You should consider the possibility that the correct candidate has not yet been forged, and this process is part of the foundry.

[wyldwolf]

13. 1972

In 1972, the year Biden was elected to the Senate, Gallup asked respondents if they favored "compulsory busing of some children both black and white so that school desegregation can be achieved." Twenty percent of respondents said yes, 70 percent said no, and 9 percent had no opinion.

In 1973, PDK asked respondents about their views of school integration in general, noting that it was a broader concept than busing, which is a specific desegregation strategy. In that poll, 30 percent of voters said more should be done "to integrate schools throughout the nation," 38 percent said less should be done, and 23 percent said nothing should change.

Clearly compulsory busing was unpopular with a vast majority of Americans at the time it was implemented.

BTW, Kamala Harris's system in Berkely initiated volutary busing.

[guillaumeb]

17. True, but to your point:

In 1973, PDK asked respondents about their views of school integration in general, noting that it was a broader concept than busing, which is a specific desegregation strategy. In that poll, 30 percent of voters said more should be done "to integrate schools throughout the nation," 38 percent said less should be done, and 23 percent said nothing should change.

So 38% said that less should be done. And that corresponds roughly to the percentage of Americans who approve of Trump.

[wyldwolf]

21. When busing was removed from the mix, the support for school desegration doubled

The concept of busing was what was hated, not desegregation. Conflating the two as many are doing is disingenuous. But as Obama said during one of his campaigns, 'it's silly season.'

[StarfishSaver]

37. Busing a tool, not an end

And it was only imposed by the courts n this instances when every other method for desegregating schools failed because school districts and white parents engaged in massive resistance to integration.

Of course it easy popular - but it's unpopularity had little do with the mode of transportation. The vast majority of students who were bused in America were buses for reasons unrelated to desegregation. The opposition was based mostly on the objection to integration.

As my father said at the time: "It's not the BUS. It's US."

[dawg day]

89. Has busing been "removed from the mix?" My kid was bused in 2003 to a different middle school

The high school was fully integrated already... because of busing.

In many places, busing did its purpose, and either faded away or isn't noticed. In my area, black families moved into the district to be closer to the school their children were now going to, so it had the probably inadvertent effect of eventually integrating the neighborhood too. One interesting outcome is that white families from nearby districts pay tuition to send their kids to this public school because it has a great ROTC and Voc-ed program that suburban schools lack.

There was a point where schools around here were kind of competing to get bused kids as more federal $ came with every one. Bribery really works wonders to soothe away the anger.

Kids are still being bused-- it's a big district, so they have to be transported one way or another- but now there's no need for racially-based busing because the district now is residentially integrated.

So here, at least, it worked pretty well. It was always meant to be temporary as a solution anyway.

[wyldwolf]

90. We're referring to a poll where busing was removed from the equation and treated as a separate issue

By putting "removed from the mix" in quotes, I assumed you might have read the whole subthread before replying.

[bluewater]

19. "Clearly compulsory busing was unpopular with a vast majority of Americans"

So let's work with the most racist Dixiecrat Senators to support legislation to oppose bussing?

Not a good look for the 2020 Democratic nominee if you can't apologize for that and move on.

It's simply indefensible.

[UniteFightBack]

23. It's 50 freaking years ago...sorry you can't move on and it's so 'indefensible'.

I'm laughing and it ain't with ya.

[bluewater]

31. Not apologizing for it now is indefensible.

He's the one that brought up the entire issue about being civil to racist Dixiecrats.

[UniteFightBack]

36. Oh yes the original sin...being 'civil' to racist dixiecrats.

[bluewater]

40. Don't forget working with them in the Senate to oppose bussing.

When you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.

He should apologize for doing that, say he, and the country, has evolved on the issue and move on.

That he won't simply do that is what is keeping this all in the news.

[UniteFightBack]

42. Oh my god he opposed busing which his constituents also opposed. nt

[AlexSFCA]

112. but he didnt say that during the debate

the main issue is how he responded.

[StarfishSaver]

145. If what happened "50 freaking years ago" is irrelevant, why did he bring it up?

[Goodheart]

20. But that's beside the point.

So Biden was with the majority at the time. He might have used that as a defense, but instead issued an untruth. His own words from the time reveal that he was opposed to busing altogether.

[jberryhill]

35. And in 1978, the judge in Evans v. Buchanan had enough of Delaware's bullshit

Joe Biden grew up in part of Wilmington that didn't allow black people. You can buy all the "hardscrabble Scranton" stuff you want, but in Wilmington his father owned a successful car dealership, lived in an exclusive area, and sent Joe to an upscale private school. Joe graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965. The first black student wasn't admitted until 1971.

Redlining had been a longstanding practice in Delaware, and the problem was de facto segregation as a consequence of school districts that were drawn around the white neighborhoods.

But because Evans v. Buchanan finally came to a head in 1978 and the white people were furious that their kids were going to have to go to school with black kids. A lot of the white kids were just as pissed off about it, having learned hate from their parents.

Joe had to do a lot of fancy dancing to get re-elected in 1978, and that's all this is about. Period.

[guillaumeb]

60. Well said.

Literal redlining was a practice in Chicago as well.

As was white flight, when certain neighborhoods saw nearly every white resident move to anpther area of Chicago, areas that are majority white to this day, or these whites moved to former farm communities that are now nearly all white.

[BlueWI]

67. Thanks for the factual background.

Informative.

[Hoyt]

52. Well polls indicated racism and segregation were quite popular then, too.

[jberryhill]

63. Damned straight

These parents had no problem pulling their kids out of public schools and dealing with long commutes to often distant private ones.

Of course, if you are Joe Biden, the most exclusive private school borders your own property.

[treestar]

70. The 70s called and want their issues back

This is ridiculous. It only proves how Biden has more experience that he was even around then.

Kamala’s parents both had doctorates. She was not from a poor urban black background.

Reviving the busing issue goes nowhere.

[customerserviceguy]

72. Agreed

We have plenty of current issues that need to be talked about. Rehashing the busing arguments from 40+ years ago takes away valuable focus.

[Goodheart]

16. Here are Biden's own words

"I never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing."

Now, why is that a very bad statement?

Let's suppose for a moment that the country, in disgust over our frequent mass murders, finally finds the will and power to pass Eric Swalwell's proposal for a mandatory buyback of all guns.

Let's now imagine a future debate when a candidate turns to Biden and asks "will you admit that it was wrong to oppose the gun buy back program?"

How would THIS statement sound?:

"I never, never, ever opposed voluntarily turning in your guns".

Same thing in my book.

Joe's problem is that without its mandatory nature it had no teeth and was all moot.

[guillaumeb]

18. As I noted, busing was a response to second class schools and opportunities.

And it failed to fix the problem because racism is still a strong force in the US.

[Goodheart]

25. That's beside the point. Maybe he should have used that in his defense?

Instead of his bad answer?

[guillaumeb]

28. Possibly.

Like Harris herself, I do not think that Biden is, or was, a racist. But as a white male, the issue is different for him versus a non-white citizen.

[emmaverybo]

34. Put a person in a corner and then make them chose between two options to answer a complex

question. The interrogator will work with a rubric: damned if you say this and damned if you say that.
Biden should not have to defend himself because he has strong black voter support, long-standing
ties to black leaders, and a proven track record as a two term VP to the first black American President, while his challengers do not have such a history and have not worked on civil rights issues as long as he has.
Biden envy is a destructive sickness.

[Goodheart]

39. LOL. Get real.

[guillaumeb]

46. That is true, but racism is so endemic to the system

that it affects everything. And Harris' experience as a non-white female is qualitatively different from that of a white male.

[emmaverybo]

48. And she was bused on a voluntary system. Her parents were highly educated; not all if Berkley

was affluent but none of it in her time would have been lacking in diversity or intellectual and cultural
riches. It was and is the most liberal town in Northern California, with nary a barrio. Later, family moved to an affluent area in Canada.

Her narrative confrontation was obviously staged down to the theatrical beats in it. Well done and
I’d say never done before in a political debate. She is still carrying on. Biden, a decades long civil rights activist has become her object lesson.

I applaud her strategy and her performance-style, personalized politics.

Berkley, by the way, has been more integrated than almost anywhere else in America, certainly as far back as when she was growing up.

[guillaumeb]

50. She is a non-white female running in a very racist, very misogynistic country.

A country where many will reject her because she is non-white and female. We all know this. Harris knows this. Biden knows this.

Biden experienced the racism that was directed against President Obama. He knows how open and brutal it was. And the GOP benefits from an open acceptance of racism, and the support of racists.

[emmaverybo]

51. She should be confronting THEM.

[guillaumeb]

58. And she will.

Not that it is needed. The racists are proud and open.

[emmaverybo]

66. In other words, confront the guy who isn't an actual proud and flagrant racist supported by

thousands upon thousands of white neo-Nazis, the guy who has a strong civil rights record the past four or more decades, and knock him out of the contest so you can then confront systemic racism in America and Trump and the Republicans.
Malarkey!

[Thekaspervote]

81. Bravo!! Well said

[R B Garr]

107. She has blunted legitimate attacks on true racists

in the White House by calling a Democrat racist. What a breathtakingly stupid thing to do. What a gift to Trump. Absolutely unbelievable, and we know it was done to eat into Biden’s AA support.

[emmaverybo]

111. YES. Unfortunately for no other reason. She is not confronting racists or racism in America, but

Biden, long a civil rights supporter, whose avowed mission is to defeat the chief White Supremacy enabler in the nation, our president.

This, her self-serving drama, is supposed to be a victory against systemic racism?

[R B Garr]

120. It's a very questionable strategy about racism, for sure.

She is also putting Obama down since he selected Biden as a running mate. Calling Biden a racist just lets Trump skate. What a shame.

[Kind of Blue]

84. I'm trying to understand the picture you're painting of Sen. Harris.

So is guillaumeb's statement false or half true? "racism is so endemic to the system that it affects everything. And Harris' experience as a non-white female is qualitatively different from that of a white male."

Her parents were/are educated people but she was raised by her single mom in the flatlands, redlined African-American community in the areas South and West Berkeley. Even if her mom and dad earned upper middle class income in the early '70s, we know that to this day, because of redlining, black people who make that much do not live in upper middle-class neighborhoods.

“She lived close to the dividing line,” said Scott Saul, a professor of English at UC Berkeley and editor of “The Berkeley Revolution,” a digital history project. “It is a harbinger of how she has crossed those boundaries throughout her life.”

So I'm not sure how you relate systemic racism affecting everything to Harris not lacking in diversity, intellectual and cultural riches. My childhood in such neighborhoods had all of those riches. So are you saying the voluntary busing at that time was unnecessary, just because they wanted to? "statistics come from a 1963 report called De Facto Segregation in Berkeley Public Schools, which highlighted how segregated BUSD schools were in terms of enrollment and a number of other factors, including teacher composition and curriculum.

Along with passionate advocacy by the NAACP and UC Berkeley’s Congress of Racial Equality, the force of new star superintendent Sullivan, and School Board members who spoke as strongly in favor of desegregation, that research helped pave the way for various integration pilots, including the tumultuous integration of the junior high schools in 1964, and ultimately the busing plan in 1968."

I'm not so sure of your statement, "Berkley, by the way, has been more integrated than almost anywhere else in America, certainly as far back as when she was growing up."

As far as I know "In the early 1960s, Berkeley was also at the forefront of the battle over fair housing. In Jan. 1963, the Berkeley City Council passed an anti-segregation law that included criminal penalties for those guilty of housing discrimination – one of the first efforts of its kind. However, the opposition was tremendous...one supporter of the referendum said that it was “A plot to Congo-lize our city.”

Read more here about Berkeley, "more integrated than almost anywhere else in America," and the lasting affects of segregation. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/09/20/redlining-the-history-of-berkeleys-segregated-neighborhoods

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Kamala-Harris-rode-the-buses-that-integrated-14060240.php#photo-17774443
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2018/10/16/a-radical-decision-an-unfinished-legacy
http://revolution.berkeley.edu/projects/public-schools/

[Kind of Blue]

85. Thank you!

[guillaumeb]

98. You are welcome. eom

[Thekaspervote]

80. Indeed and the polls prove it

[Honeycombe8]

41. No. Integration was a response to segregation in schools. Busing was one method to achieve a goal.

Communities were allowed to decide for themselves the best way to achieve integration. The law was integration. The fed was only interested in results.

Why people insist that one way to achieve a goal is the only way, is beyond me. Locations are different, communities are different, situations are different. Only a local community is in a position to know the best way to achieve a goal for its area.

If a community thought busing was the best way for them, they were free to use that method. Some used a combination of procedures and programs to work toward integration.

Not mandating one procedure for the entire country was the right and sensible thing to do, whatever the procedure. Let's not forget that some of the kids found the forced busing to be hard on them.

In my area, black and white kids could go to different schools without special busing being mandated. They could take the regular school buses, walk, or have their parents drop them off, just like the original kids at the school.

[guillaumeb]

47. Well said.

In the Chicago area, bus service, like other services, was second class in black areas. And it still is in 2019. And many of the same neighborhoods that were mainly white are still mainly white. And the south side of Chicago turned from majority white to majority black very quickly as the Federal Government became more aggressive at enforcing the law.

So in a very segregated area, with few transportation options, only forced options worked to physically integrate schools. And only until many whites moved out of those areas to smaller, whiter towns in the area.

[StarfishSaver]

134. Busing was simply the method of transporting students to the new schools they were assigned to

in order to overcome the segregation that had become built in as a result of intentionally discriminatory district lines and segregated housing patterns.

Busing was one of the tools used to implement desegregation plans. Some of these plans were developed and implemented voluntarily. Others were ordered by the courts after the local districts refused to integrate voluntarily.

Busing wasn't what people objected to. It was desegregation. They didn't want the courts to order them to desegregate after they refused to do so voluntarily and they were furious when they did. "Forced busing" wasn't what they were really objecting to - they were fighting "forced desegregation."

"It wasn't the bus. It was US."

[Dan]

55. I have to laugh

Because in the small midwestern town that I lived in - they bused for segregation every school day that I attended until forced integration. There was never a problem with busing or finding funds to continue busing for segregation.

[guillaumeb]

61. Yes indeed.

And in many states, parents set up private white academies to avoid forced integration.

[jberryhill]

64. Yep

When it started in Delaware in 1979, parents went through extraordinary efforts to get their kids to the private white schools that just happened to open up here.

[czarjak]

59. The first day of forced busing in Lubbock, Tx. resulted in a dead Black student...

Followed by riots.

[guillaumeb]

62. Separate but equal was invented by racists to justify segregation. eom

[Blue_true]

65. Where I lived working class Blacks and Whites lived literally right beside

eachother, but some kids were bused 6-8 miles instead of walking to nearby schools, some kids were bused even farther. The cry about "forced busing" is just a catchphrase that racists used, there was always forced busing to maintain segregated schools. Now up north housing patterns may have been different, I only saw the reality where I live.

[jberryhill]

68. Here's the thing

Yes, up North - and Delaware straddles that line - housing patterns were different.

But those housing patterns were no accident - and it wasn’t just economics.

[Blue_true]

69. In the Deep South, it was economics.

Well off Whites did not want less well off Whites living near them, so they set up their areas of town. Poor Blacks and poor Whites lived in other areas, often right beside eachother. Northern housing patterns were likely different, in some places in the south we had "sundown" laws where a Black person would not be caught in some parts of town after sundown because that meant likely lynching, I don't know how extensive that was, but it was not the reality where I grew up.

Where I grew up the races were seperated in schools and public accommodations, even when they lived side by side. A lot of effort was put into maintaining that seperation. The truly sad part of the whole situation was that sexual angst underlay the whole system, the fear of cross racial relationships, particularly between Black men and White women - except among well off Whites, who simply did not want their kids mixing with ANYONE that was not of their class.

[unc70]

91. Sundown laws were more common in the north

There was a major book in the topic written five or so years ago.

[guillaumeb]

106. And segregation does not need to be written into the law.

But it can be enforced by group consensus and group action.

[wyldwolf]

96. BS

"Forced busing" wasn't a catchphrase for racists. You can't make that statement without some corroboration. It's used in the legal definition of the practice. The Natonal Bureau of Economic Reasearch uses the term. You are, in effect, not only calling Joe Biden a racist, but also Jimmy Carter and other Democrats of the era. 70% of America hated forced busing according to a '72 gallup poll, which is not and was not the same thing as desegregation.

Also, contrary to what you said, there WAS NOT always forced busing to maintain segregated schools. How old are you??

With civil rights leaders like John Lewis completely taking Biden's side on this, no one really has to wonder why white "progressives" continue to misrepresent. Kellyanne Conway isn't the only one giving "alternative facts."

[Blue_true]

99. Black people were bused to inferior schools, often pass White schools.

That was what I witnessed. So, for Blacks, the busing was FORCED all along. I don't care who used the term forced busing to oppose busing to integrate, they were being disengenuous, even ones that I admire.

Let's see how Biden's support in the primary holds up among African Americans. That will be the test.

[wyldwolf]

100. Your reply makes zero sense.

FIRST you claim "forced" was a racist buzzword. Suddenly it isn't? Or were you just projecting your feelings on actual, factual history?

[Blue_true]

104. You just don't get it.

FORCED was always a racist concoction. In the case of Blacks being forced into inferior schools, it was racist and in the case of Whites using busing as a crutch for racism, the term forced busing was racist.

You made an inaccurate claim that Blacks opposed busing. Gallup reported that, but parallel studies showed that Black support for busing never dropped below 50% until Black leaders started to question the practice in the face of White flight to avoid integrated schools.

Lastly. I pointed out over and over that my experience was as a poor southerner. We simply had to live near people of other races because moving to the better parts of town simply was not possible. Southerners fought integration, but today southern schools in areas with meaningful Black populations are highly integrated, as opposed to many places in the north. The reason for that as I have pointed out until my face turned blue (yet some still don't understand) was the reality of southern housing patterns, they were far less segregated than in other parts of the country, in general, though there were and still are some exceptions.

[wyldwolf]

113. NO it was not

Democtats - liberal Democrats - used it. It's used on policy papers and legal proceeding. I get that you and other "progressives" want to retroactively make it a racist term. That's expected in silly season.

*** You made an inaccurate claim that Blacks opposed busing. ***

In Deleware, a plurality of blacks opposed it 53-47%. Another poll from 1977 - three years later - found a similar result. Among parents of public school students, opposition to busing was 90-8% in the heavily white New Castle County suburbs. In Wilmington, with a largely black student population, opposition ran at 42-39%.

The gallup poll mentioned previously also showed a plurality of blacks against it.

*** parallel studies showed that Black support for busing never dropped below 50% until Black leaders started to question the practice in the face of White flight to avoid integrated schools. ***

Link?

[Blue_true]

114. The information that I gave was summarized from Wikipedia and an NPR story about public

Attitudes during the height of busing 72-76.

I would expect greater resistance in the north, that part of the country and the WestCoast had and still have the hardest cases of purposefully segregated housing tracks.

[wyldwolf]

116. Wikipedia and NPR? Link? Or was it your intepretation?

[Blue_true]

118. Show me your links. I read both information sources and both agreed, that is

why I posted the information. You have made lots of claims without links or even pointing out where your information came from.

[wyldwolf]

119. So your response is "show me your links first?" LOL. You have none.

But what the hell. Since we both know your claim is, at best, your interpretion.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287179318

https://institution.gallup.com/documents/question.aspx?QUESTION=55105&SearchConType=1&SearchTypeAll=favor%20oppose%20compulsory%20busing%20children%20black%20white%20school%20desegregation%20achieved

http://pdkpoll.org/timeline/1973

[pansypoo53219]

83. i was bused in late grade school. went to an early magnet school. i loved it.

i had more black friends than white. my choice. i miss being integrated,

[RHMerriman]

101. Not in Berkeley, California, it wasn't...

Not in Berkeley, California, it wasn't...

Harris' Hail Mary was just that: "Look at me!"

Biden was at 45 percent favorable with AA: she was at 5. Pretty obvious what this pathetic little flap was all about.

FWIW, the Berkeley public schools were NOT de jure segregated by race, as well; attendance was organized by residential neighborhoods, which meant de facto by wealth, but unless you're going to say housing prices are something to be regulated by the federal government, it's a moot point.

See:

[link:https://www.berkeleyschools.net/2018/12/50th-anniversary-of-berkeleys-pioneering-busing-plan-for-school-integration/|]

Pretending the child of two University of California PHds - in Berkeley - in the 1970s was somehow underprivileged is ludicrous.

It's a stupid argument, a cheap shot, and generally makes her look both cynical and emotionally manipulative, which is not a winning look for someone trying to get political support from across a diverse party that wants to see Trump defeated in 2020.

Self-righteousness - especially against a fellow Democrat - is not going to work.

[guillaumeb]

105. To your points:

FWIW, the Berkeley public schools were NOT de jure segregated by race, as well;
attendance was organized by residential neighborhoods, which meant de facto by wealth, but unless you're going to say housing prices are something to be regulated by the federal government, it's a moot point.

In a country where wealth is racially unequal, this de facto segregation by wealth was the result of earlier de jure segregation by race.

And that segregation has never been eliminated.

Yes, Harris did not grow up in a slum, but she and her parents knew how they were regarded by many white Americans.

And Harris did not say she was underprivileged, she said she was treated unequally.

As to the two candidates, and their support, Biden has enormous name recognition stretching for decades versus Harris being largely unknown outside of California.

[RHMerriman]

108. So again, are you going to argue that housing prices are something to be regulated by the federal

Segregation by wealth hits everyone. I'm sure me and mine would enjoy living in San Francisco or Manhattan, but it ain't going to happen...

So again, unless you are going to argue that housing prices are something to be regulated by the federal government, so what?

Sen. Harris' parents (father: Stanford professor; mother: McGill professor) were educated and a damn sight more comfortable than the vast majority of Californians (or Canadians, for that matter) in the 1970s.

And the senator's attempt to manipulate emotion to obscure that reality is pretty damn off-putting, and I say that as someone who fucking voted for her for AG and US Senate.

[guillaumeb]

109. Segregation by race impacts how people can accumulate wealth.

And where they can live.

And how they are perceived by one segment of their fellow citizens.

[RHMerriman]

117. And segregation by race in housing via restricted convenants has been illegal since 1948

And segregation by race in housing via restricted convenants has been illegal since 1948, which was 16 years before Sen. Harris was born...

SHELLEY v. KRAEMER 334 U.S. 1 (1948) HURD v. HODGE 334 U.S. 24 (1948)

and of course, it was even more deeply buried across the United States by passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968.

She was four, and hadn't - presumably - begun kindergarten yet.

So again, unless you're going to argue that housing prices should be regulated by the federal government, the whole issue is moot.

And it sure as hell is not a winner for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020.

But you can feel self-righteous about it. That will make all the difference if Trump orders a nuclear strike somewhere.

[guillaumeb]

122. The issue is not moot.

There is segregation de facto, and there is segregation de jure.

In my area, south of Chicago, there have been recent examples of blacks moving into "white" neighborhoods and being threatened for daring to do so.

[RHMerriman]

123. Then have the 'threateners" investigated and face the consequences of their actions

Then have the 'threateners" investigated and face the consequences of their actions.

"De jure" is the law.

[guillaumeb]

126. So it is that easy?

My experience says no, it is not that easy.

I was a union representative for the USPS. Racism is illegal, but ever present. There are actually law forms that specialize in teaching managers how to avoid the appearance of racism to defend against EEO complaints. Does that mean that there is no racism?

[RHMerriman]

128. Does that mean to combat it you're going to argue the federal government

Does that mean to combat it you're going to argue the federal government gets to regulate the price of housing?

Because if so, good luck winning an election anywhere.

[guillaumeb]

129. We will agree to disagree.

Have a good night.

[guillaumeb]

124. Yes, and now that it is illegal, racism has disappeared.

Except, that it has not.

[RHMerriman]

125. Yeah, crime doesn't disappear when it is made illegal.

You have to enforce it. That's why we have cops, district attorneys, and attorneys general.

Last time I checked, they didn't do their jobs by complaining about "hurtful" words.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

115. Actually, it was a response to mandates resulting from Brown v. Board of Education,

which held in 1954 that laws establishing racial segregation were unconstitutional, and that so-called "separate but equal" schools were inherently unequal. In a second case, Brown II, decided in 1955, the court ordered the states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed," but didn't suggest any method for doing so. Interestingly, Brown was a busing case. It started out as a lawsuit filed by a black family in Kansas after the school board wouldn't let their child attend the school closest to their home, but instead made her take the bus to a distant blacks-only school.

In response to Brown, the state of Virginia came up with a plan to resist segregation. One school district simply closed all of the public schools by refusing to appropriate any money for the school system. Instead, it provided tuition grants for all students to use at private school, but because all the private schools were segregated and there were no private schools for black students, no formal education was provided for black children in that county from 1959 to 1963. A lawsuit was brought on behalf of the black children, and in Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County the Supreme Court held that the county had violated the Equal Protection cause, and ordered the city to fund the public schools.

But many school districts, especially in the South, continued to drag their feet and pretty much ignore the directive to integrate their schools. The Brown decision caused some families to move to the suburbs or enroll their children in private schools; the number of white students in urban public schools decreased so much that between 1968 and 1978, schools in the South were more segregated than they were before Brown. Busing came about because other methods of desegregating schools hadn't worked, or school districts weren't even trying. In Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, decided in 1971, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a school board's plan to desegregate by means of busing. But later, in Milliken v. Bradley (1974), the Supreme Court said there were limits on busing, holding that federal courts did not have the authority to order desegregation by busing between the city and the suburbs unless there was proof that the suburban school districts were intentionally segregating. The result was that de facto segregation persisted in the North.

In other words, busing was a desegregation method ordered by the courts on a piecemeal basis, and it while it was always controversial it was never completely successful. By the mid-70s, 20 years after Brown, many schools were still segregated, and the question arose as to whether Congress should require busing as a means of desegregating schools nationally rather than leaving it to the courts. This is what the controversy is about - not whether the schools should be desegregated, but how they should be desegregated. The Supreme Court had ordered desegregation without offering any clue as to how to go about it, and even after many years of litigation that question remained unanswered. Busing was one attempt at a solution but it continued to be controversial, even leading to riots and violence in Boston. It was and is a difficult, complex problem, and there were many who wanted to integrate the schools but felt busing was not an effective means to do so. It seems to me that labeling anyone who held that opinion as racist is neither fair nor accurate.

[guillaumeb]

127. This excellent response deserves to be its own post.

Chicago has been called one of the most segregated cities in the country. Boston as well.

In addition to what you wrote, some Southern States saw the rise of private academies that allowed parents to ensure that their children would not be educated with non-white students.

[GulfCoast66]

130. I was bussed so have first hand experience.

Granted, only as applied to my medium sized Southern city.

My dad favored integrating and wanted me attending school with Black kids. Hell, he fled the rural south to avoid the oppression.

That said, had he been able to afford it he would have put me in private school during my elementary school years when kids were bussed. As it was, twice in an elementary kids 6 year career, he or she were part of 2 bus loads of children from all the traditionally white schools were put on busses and taken to the predominantly black school, totally removing them from their growing social circle. Even worse, a majority of the black kids were shipped to all the white schools destroying any community support for the school since it was no longer a neighborhood school in any sense of the word.

My best friend of 41 years attended private school his entire elementary career. He, and almost all the other private school kids rejoined public school for 7th grade since they were not bussed. Those schools were entirely integrated and it is where I met my friend. His parents were and remain liberal. Well, only one still lives.

So in my one city at least the resistance was about bussing small kids across the city breaking up newly forming friendships at an age where they are learning to make friends. Not about segregation.

The end to bussing was celebrated by both blacks and whites.

Ironically the black kid we elected as Senior Class president was never bussed. His parents were doctors and his neighborhood school was majority white. Bussing him would have actually increased segregation!!

Again, this is a case of one group of kids in one southern city. I’m sure there were other circumstances.

One thing I do know...if we are seen as or actually support a return to forced bussing we can kiss electoral success goodbye.

[guillaumeb]

131. Busing was an attempt at forced integration.

And that was a response, as I said above, to the fact that separate but equal was separate, but certainly not equal.

[StarfishSaver]

132. Busing was simply the method of transporting students to the new schools

they were assigned to in order to overcome the segregation that had become built in as a result of intentionally discriminatory district lines and segregated housing patterns.

Busing was one of the tools used to implement the desegregation plans ordered by the courts after the local districts refused to integrate voluntarily.

Busing wasn't what people objected to. It was desegregation.

"It wasn't the bus. It was US."

[guillaumeb]

133. Excellent point.

Busing was an imperfect response to the fact that a certain percentage of white people in this country did not want to live near non-whites, or attend schools with them.

And that percentage might be smaller, but it still exists.

[GulfCoast66]

135. in my personal experience, limited as it might be, it was indeed the bus.

When you say ‘the school they were assigned to’ you leave so much unsaid. Until that time, since the beginning of public education, elementary schools were neighborhood schools. Even proponents of integration, meaning eliminating legally enforced segregation as it was in my state till Brown, did not want to see their 6 year old walk 10 minutes to the neighborhood school, then twice in their elementary school years be put on a bus and driven 20 minutes to a school across the city they knew few people at. So many of them put their elementary school kids in private schools. But, and this is important, when the kids hit 7th grade we had a big influx of kids joining the public school system. Into fully integrated schools. Our city was small enough that the much larger Jr. High Schools could be integrated by drawing school zone lines appropriately. So these kids went from private schools with little or no diversity to public schools with an African American percentage of around 30%. And they happily attended. We’re there some who went their whole career in private school? Yes, but far from a majority. A small minority and many of those were in integrated Catholic schools. Ironically, bussing older kids would not have been as opposed as they had older and more stable peer groups. But was not needed.

As we all know, the problem was housing policies which still plague some areas today. Had the courts rather insured all schools were funded equally and really cracked down on housing practices the result would have been better. The school I was bussed to, which had been a Black only school was a train wreck. The older boys were rewarded for good behavior with being allowed to take the rats and mice caught each night to the dumpster. Had the money spent on all those busses been forced into improving the schools it would have been money well spent.

Today I live in a middle/upper middle class neighborhood. It has been integrated since it was built in the 90s so it really is not an issue here.

And again I want to emphasize and admit. My experience is with one medium sized Southern City. I’m know it does not reflect the universal experience. Hell, there were districts in rural Louisiana Parishes that created private schools which pretty much acted as public schools. For whites, that is.

[StarfishSaver]

136. I hear you

But notwothstanding your experience, in most instances, it wasn't the bus.

The communities that fought busing tooth and nail were the same communities that fought desegregation so aggressively that the courts had to step in and order them to follow the law.

"Neighborhood schools" were often a cover for segregated schools in a segregated society, designed to be that way by school boards, city councils, state legislatures, the federal government, banks, the real estate industry, etc. Black people were prevented from moving onto white areas and their children were relegated to inferior, predominantly black schools. When given the opportunity to integrate schools peacefully and cooperatively, many communities, like
Berkeley, stepped up. But many did not. They fought every inch.

If these parents had been willing to integrate voluntarily and then objected to integration being implemented through busing, I might agree with you that it was the bus and not us. But that wasn't the case. The most vociferous opposition to busing occurred where the communities had refused to integrate all along and then objected to being ordered by the court to do so. This was classic retrenchment and massive resistance. The bus was just the excuse.

And while neighborhood schools in close walking distance from home were common for many, that wasn't always the case, especially for black students who were often bused miles away from their homes past one or more shiny new white schools in order to get to their segregated school.

I myself was bused several miles from my house even though a school was much closer to me. it wasn't done for the purposes of desegregation, but that's the way the school district had drawn the lines. The school closest to my house was in a different zone in the district and therefore, the kids in my neighborhood weren't eligible to attend it but instead were required to attend the school in our zone even though it was several miles further away. No one complained, none of the parents demanded that their children be allowed to attend the school closer to home, there were no protests or tipping over of the buses. The parents just put us on the bus and sent us on our way.

Most of the time, it wasn't the bus. It was us.

[GulfCoast66]

137. I wonder if the time frame and geography played a role.

I was in elementary school in the mid to late 70s. In high school I remember the older teachers saying how bad it was in the late 60s early 70’s but never saw any tension. For a few years there were even separated Proms. But by the early 80’s when in high school race never came up. Heck, our senior class president was a black kid and we were only 30% black. I know it was worse in rural areas where closing the segregated school insured integration as the had so few schools.

As an aside, one thing I do know. I often heard surprise expressed at the often violent resistance integration had in the North. At the time we thought it only a southern issue.

I know integration was disliked by many. But bussing pushed our allies and neutrals away. I can’t believe it is even being seriously discussed

[StarfishSaver]

138. Busing didn't push them away. Desegregation did.

And true allies wouldn't have been "pushed away" by either.

[GulfCoast66]

139. I respect your opinion. And In a majority of cases it is true.

But the world is filled with grey. People can and do change. This ex-conservative is living proof.

There were lots of southern democrats that while not sharing our 2019 views on race were ok with integration in 1975. But so many of these people, after seeing their young children pulled out of their neighborhood schools on order of a federal judge, were ripe for Reagan’s anti-federal Government bullshit.

At least that is what I witnessed in one small southern city.

Getting bussed as a young child sucked. I hated it. Not the black kids. I was born in 66. Always had black kids in class and never knew at that young age it had been any different. But being put on that bus and shipped to a school full of strangers for one year was hard. Parents saw that. It had an emotional impact.

On edit: Really enjoy this type of discussion. It is rare and lately I am guilty of becoming overly emotional and posting negative attacks. It proves that honorable people can disagree on serious issues.

[StarfishSaver]

140. I understand and appreciate your perspective

I also understand how hard busing was on many of the children. But what was the alternative? Not try to desegregate the schools? Leave a few more generations of black kids trapped in segregated inferior schools hoping that eventually desegregation could be done easily?

One of the frustrating things about this entire thing was the sense that everyone claimed they were for fairness equal opportunity and racial justice, but when it came time for people to actually do anything about it, they expected all of the burden to be born by other people - any sacrifice on their own part was too much.

There were no easy answers...

And I, too, appreciate this conversation!

[GulfCoast66]

141. Good points. But I do think there were better alternatives.

That would have had the added advantage of not totally destroying the Democratic Party among whites in the south.

First, crack down hard on informal redlining which realtors did into the 80’s.

Second, federal judges mandate all schools in a district have the same quality facilities, not just funding going forward. Like I mentioned, the previous all black school I was bussed to was a train wreck. It should have been rebuilt. And no one would have bitched.

They could have allowed black kids to go to the school of their parents choice as well. But I guarantee you had their neighborhood school been rebuilt to the quality of the white schools they would have chosen that option. Because those black kids hated bussing as much as I did. And it totally wrecked their neighborhood school since more of them were bussed. 2 busses from every white elementary school took kids to the traditional black school. EVERY one of those busses took black kids to white schools. At least for 4 year kids in my neighborhood went to their neighborhood schools. For black kids they were bussed 4 of 6 years. Had to meet the quotas, to hell with the results on the children.

Those 3 things would have actually solved the problem and we would still have a majority in the south. Not of whites, certainly, but in the district I came up in Blacks made up 35%.

A Federal Judge in St. Louis managed our case. Kids like me paid the price and our parents saw it. Bussing set me back academically for 3 years. Not the quality of the teachers, but the feeling of being so alienated. For young children putting them in a foreign, strange place with no friends or family is emotionally devastating. Sound familiar with today’s news?

I readily admit bussing was a well meant solution to an intractable problem. But it put the toll on innocent young children. Several other DU members who were bussed have agreed.

This issue scares more than any other. I will vote for the candidates who most strongly says forced bussing was the wrong way to solve the problem.

Unless you were involved in this bullshit you really don’t know how devastating it was. It still scars me and many others.

Sorry for the rant. But 45 years later the experience still pisses me off. No young kid should go through that. I sure as hell would not let a child of mine.

Ironically, my parents were Democrats who favored integration. My dad fled the rural south against his fathers wishes to escape the oppression.

[StarfishSaver]

142. A lot of these remedies are great on concept but either unworkable or too slow

For example, by then, redlining was already illegal. But it had it been in place for so long that it caused massive and deeply entrenched housing segregation that would take decades to overcome. What was to happen to the kids in the segregated neighborhoods in the meantime?

Also, the attempts to equalize the facilities had been tried for decades and failed. In fact that was the very basis of the cases that eventually led to Brown v. Board of Education. Brown didn't begin as an attempt to reverse the "separate but equal" doctrine. The original cases that led to Brown were focused on doing just what you suggest - demanding that school districts provide equal facilities for black and white students. But over time, as those cases developed, it became apparent to the courts that equality of segregated facilities was impossible because the segregation itself was the inequality. By the time the cases reached the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall with no longer arguing for separate but equal facilities, but was arguing for the dismantling of separate equal. The court agreed, ruling that segregated facilities were inherently unequal and could never be equalized because the very point of segregation was to impose a badge of inferiority on black people.

(The "Road to Brown" was a fascinating journey and I urge you to read about how Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston developed the jurisprudence that led to the Brown decision. I'll get you some cites, if you like)

It's easy to look back in 20/20 hindsight and assume what they should have done, but the people involved in this were working as hard as they could under some very difficult circumstances to come up with the solutions - busing was just one of them and it only came about because so many other solutions failed.

[GulfCoast66]

143. There we agree. Hindsight is always 20/20.

And the people pushing it were extremely well intentioned and made the choices they thought best.

As much as I complain about those years, I also have to admit they might have given my ability too see people of color as equals because I shared such an experience with them. And my parents of course. I’m better than no human and none are better than me. Heard that my whole life.

I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts you have read C. Vann Woodward’s “The Burden of Southern History”. Of course he was wrong in his assumptions. But that thinking drove much of what happened in those years. And he was not totally wrong. This southern white guy is more comfortable with southern African Americans than with many northern whites. They eat poorly, talk funny and are too impatient! But now I have taken this thread down a real rabbit hole!

I’ll put Road to Brown on my list.

Thanks for the discussion. Look forward to more.

And have a great week.

Oh. And I apologize for the post I made a few days ago. Bourbon.