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Cathy Learner
Professor Connie Steel
RHE 309K
3 March 2016
60’s Shades of Gray:
Debunking the White vs. Black Myth in Education Integration Debates
In the blurry lens of popular history, it seems like the only people opposing the
integration of US schools in the 1960s would have been poor racist whites. However, a deeper
investigation into the historic attitudes of Americans in the 1960s reveals that black and white
communities had in common that they were divided internally amongst themselves on the issue.
In some places blacks and whites with similar interests even cooperated. Journal articles by
current historians and scholars like Derrick Alridge and Charise Cheney reveal that black leaders
made arguments in favor of voluntary separation for black schools to maintain their high quality
and their position as centers for community values. Meanwhile, white advocates rose to the call
for equal education from unlikely places like the students and faculty of mostly white Quincy
High School. Research by Dionne Danns into the rhetoric of racism reveals that there were
subtle ways that some seemingly moderate white groups expressed their racism and
segregationism covertly. Danns research seems supported by letters from prominent Democrats
like Harold Cooley and Maddox accusing President Johnson of “overstepping” Constitutional
boundaries in his fight for integration. As far apart as black and white communities seemed,
racial cooperation and integration could be found in professional circles as exemplified in the
advocacy work of Wilson Wade the first black president of the mostly white Pennsylvania State
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Education Agency, and of William Taylor a white lawyer who worked with the NAACP. Thus,
we find the picture of 1960s attitudes on integration to contain many more subtle shades of gray
than the black vs. white sketch of popular mythology would have us believe.
I learned while doing this research that there were even more groups with divided
opinions like Native Americans and Mexican Americans, which made me question how the
government uses categories like race and ethnicity. I chose the sources listed below to lay the
foundation for my final project, which will go deeper into the rhetoric and arguments of black
leaders who were in favor of voluntary education segregation. To do this I will need to do an
additional research step by reading W.E.B. DuBois’s book On the Education of Black Folk and
maybe find one other source from a black leader in the time period. My paper will analyze the
values underlying the arguments made by these leaders for separate black schools. I would like
to explore how those values reflected the America they lived in then to help me think about how
things are different (or the same) today.
Alridge, Derrick. “On the Education of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Paradox of
Segregation.” Gendering the Carceral State: African American Women, History, and the
Criminal Justice System. Spec. issue of The Journal of African American History 100.3
(2015): 473-493. Print.
In the essay “On the Education of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Paradox of
Segregation” Derrick Alridge examines Du Bois’s position on education and its role in
the creation of self-sustaining black communities. Alridge, a professor in the Social
Foundations of Education program at the University of Virginia, focuses his research on
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African American educational and intellectual history and the civil rights movement.
This article appears in a special issue of a prominent scholarly journal (serving scholars
of African American history since 1916) together with selected articles related to race
and prison implying perhaps that the history of American education relates to the
disproportionate number of African American men behind bars today.
Alridge analyzes and explains Du Bois’ rationale for “supporting voluntarily separate
education for African Americans, while advocating for their integration into the major
institutions in American society” (473). Du Bois supported the attitude of segregation in
education because he believed that it would have a positive effect on the Black
community. In fact, Du Bois stated that these communities built “by us for us” would
improve race relations between whites and blacks because the economic dependence by
blacks on whites would be gone (481). Not all members of the black community agreed
with this ideology, one being the NAACP. The NAACP felt that this way of thinking
negated the work they were doing to create equality between the races and not more
divisions.
Cheney, Charise. “Blacks on Brown: Intra-Community Debates Over School Desegregation
in Topeka, Kansas, 1941-55.” Western Historical Quarterly 42.4 (2011): 481500. JSTOR. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
In the popular imagination the blacks of Topeka, Kansas, are heroes of the desegregation
movement. However, Charise Cheney’s study of the community’s response to Brown vs.
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Board of Education reveals that in the decade prior to Brown, those blacks who
campaigned for segregation in schools outnumbered those who fought it. This support for
segregation can be partly traced to the social conditions in Topeka, where the laws were
not as overtly discriminatory as in the South. Consequently, black resistance to white
domination was sporadic.
Of the various advocates of segregated schools, black parents and teachers were the most
vocal. Topeka’s all-black schools were highly regarded, for they were as well-funded as
white schools and even had comparable curricula. Some black parents opposed integrated
schools in the belief that the quality of education their children received would be
adversely affected. Additionally, many members of the community feared that educated
blacks would have fewer employment opportunities if all-black schools were dissolved.
In these schools, teachers and students enjoyed a close relationship, and it was therefore
considered imperative to safeguard the interests of the educators. As presented in the
article, Cheney’s insistence on the complexity of the African-American response to
integration aligns her work with recent scholarship that questions the conventional
narrative of the civil rights movement by acknowledging the divisions within the black
community.
Cooley, Harold D. Letter to Lyndon Baines Johnson. 30 Sept. 1966. Box 51, HU 2-5 9/1/66 1/5/67. White House Central File, Subject File HU. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential
Library, Austin, Texas.
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In this letter to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, US Representative Harold Cooley
(Democrat) argues that Presidential guidelines attached to federal funds and designed to
enforce desegregation overstep constitutional bounds. Cooley asserts that “these
‘guidelines’ have gone far beyond the requirements of the Supreme Court and the
authority granted by the Congress” and do not reflect the original intent of desegregation
(par 2). He goes on to explain that “‘these guideline’ demands by the Office of
Education, setting the conditions upon local school systems for participation in Federal
funds, make a mockery of the Constitution (par 6).” Cooley uses a familiar tone and
everyday language in his argument. His use of “Mr. President” suggests politeness and
respect for the President and is an appeal to ethos (par 8). Cooley concludes by pleading
for the President to stop punishing his constituents.
Danns, Dionne. “Racial Identity and the Sanctity of the Neighborhood School.” Urban Review
40 (2008): 64-75. JSTOR. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.
Dionne Danns, an Associate Professor at Indiana University, analyzes the rhetoric used
by stakeholders in the Chicago desegregation “busing” controversy of the 1960s in this
article published in the online journal Urban Review. Chicago’s busing policy, which
began in 1967 and administered by then Superintendent, James Redmond, was not
successful. Danns contends that Chicago’s public schools were significantly more
segregated at the time of her article’s publication than forty years prior when busing was
first introduced (75-6). Danns provides a summary of the court cases and administrative
efforts that led to Chicago’s busing policy and combines this with letters and other
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historical documents to illustrate reactions from both the white and African American
communities.
Danns’ claims that while many whites opposed busing on grounds that could easily be
characterized as racist, other arguments against desegregation were made by more
moderate whites who used coded terms to make arguments that were covertly racist. The
argument for “neighborhood schools” is Danns’s primary example of a coded attempt to
maintain “White Privilege.” Danns presents compelling evidence to show that this
argument was so successful that it was even adopted by many in the African American
community at the time.
Maddox, Lester. Letter to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. 11 March 1966. Box 14, Hu 2-5
3/1/66- 8/15/66. White House Central Files, Subject File HU. The Lyndon Baines
Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas.
Written in response to President Johnson’s vision of big domestic programs, known as
the “Great Society,” this letter from the sitting Governor of Georgia (Democrat) accuses
the President and his administration of using racial integration in education and
healthcare to create a “police state.” Maddox argues that integration will negatively affect
educational standards and even drive qualified teachers to seek jobs in non-educational
fields. Maddox continues by making similar arguments against integrating healthcare. He
finishes by claiming that LBJ’s Great Society agenda is not benefiting the nation but
instead, bringing an end to “Great America.”
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Quincy High School Faculty & Staff. Letter to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. 12 Mar 1965.
Box 13, Gen Hu 2. White House Central Files, Subject File HU. Lyndon Baines
Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas.
In this letter to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the faculty and staff of Quincy High
School in Quincy, MA, profess their shame for being “passive bystander[s] ready to
sympathize but reticent to act” (para 2). Written in the wake of violence at Selma earlier
that month, they urge the President to join them and become actively involved in the fight
against racial violence. The authors use strong imagery and refer to recent tragedies in the
wake of the desegregation of schools making strong appeals to pathos. While respectful,
the letter is serious and exhorts the President to act powerfully asking “must the stripes of
our flag be dyed a deeper red so that liberty and justice are ensured for all?” Thirteen
pages of faculty and staff signatures accompany the letter, signaling the dedication of the
mostly white community of the school to the effort.
Taylor, William L. "Report on Racial Isolation in Public Schools." Memo to Honorable Harry C.
McPherson, Jr. 12 April 1967. Box 52, Ex HU 2-5 8/1/67-9/30/67. White House Central
Files, Subject File HU. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin, Texas.
The memorandum delves into the United States Commission on Civil Rights' Report on
"Racial Isolation in Public Schools." The author, William Taylor, was a white Jewish
lawyer who served as the Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the
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60s and a prominent advocate for African Americans. The memorandum addresses
multiple spheres such as media reaction, issues and misconceptions of the report, as well
as recommendations for next steps. It is archived with a copy of the report and a
collection of relevant media clippings from a variety of publications, large, small, racially
targeted, etc.
The misconceptions addressed in the memorandum include the belief that the report was
an attack on Title I, and that there would be backlash from the civil rights community
over the benefits of integrated education for black students. The memorandum also notes
that the public and media have overlooked the short-term goals of the committee and are
focusing on more expensive long-term goals. The memorandum contents that there is
poor public awareness of the report’s compelling claim that in the long term, integration
is good for all students. Plans for follow up on the report point to the current climate in
urban neighborhoods as being hostile to integrated schools. It suggests that dissemination
of success stories of the existing examples of integrated communities could be highly
influential in changing attitudes.
Wilson, Wade. Letter to LBJ. August 15 1967. Box 16, Gen HU 2 8/8/67- 10/3167. White House
Central Files, Subject File HU. Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, Austin,
Texas.
In the 1960s, the National Education Association’s (NEA) Committee on Civil and
Human Rights of Educators was concerned about the “riotous conditions” which
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prevailed in the cities of America. Wade Wilson, the chief author of the letter and
spokesperson for the NEA, taught at Cheyney State College and was the first black
President of the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA).
The letter clearly states that the NEA Committee did not approve or condone the use of
“riotous” actions to achieve legitimate goals. Trying to remedy the situation, Wilson
argued that the “lack of positive educational programs and the resultant positive
employment opportunities” led to “these damaging, destructive and degrading examples
of unrest in our society.” Under Wilson’s direction, the NEA Committee urged President
Johnson “to stimulate and provide for the total constructive educational and employment
of all members of society.” The NEA declared that the current system of urban education
must be reformed and that adequate measures must be taken to attract well-qualified
teachers who can cater to the needs of urban child.