OPINION: Re-visiting the complex legacy of MS’s school desegregation process

The topic of discussion for last week’s History is Lunch program was “Mississippi’s Legacy of School Desegregation.” It featured Ellen Ann Fentress and Rita Watts Boone. 

Watts Boone provided personal testimony on her experience in desegregating Crystal Springs High School. Fentress provided an overview of school desegregation across the state as she learned from white private school alumni, the media, and her own experiences.

As she talked about school desegregation in the 1960s, Fentress made salient comments on (1) the early resistance of the white community to public school desegregation; (2) the extensive role of the White Citizens’ Council, which had been organized to fight desegregation state-wide, including its explicit lessons on how to start a private school; (3) white leaders’ promotion of the idea of “freedom of choice” desegregation plans as a way to delay, if not totally avoid school desegregation; (4) the establishment of private, segregated academies to which thousands of whites fled; (5) the various efforts to finance the private academies, including charging tuition, accepting donations, and seeking public-funded vouchers; and (6) the distorted view of themselves, Black people, America and its history, and the rest of the world that was promoted in the private academies. These things, Fentress contended, represent Mississippi’s legacy of school desegregation, the latter two continuing to exist.

During the question-and-answer segment of the program, other aspects of Mississippi’s legacy were exposed. (1) It was brought out more forcefully that school segregation was so vigorously defended because of racial bigotry, not the idea that it is the best way to provide a quality education for their children. This continues as an evident albatross in our society. (2) It was admitted there had been examples wherein public school property had been turned over to private, segregated academies in order to help get them started or to keep them afloat. No restitution for this property transfer has ever been made. Furthermore, current phenomenon, such as the public funding of charter schools and the provision of vouchers for children attending private schools, are detrimental because it undermines public schools and takes away funding that public schools would receive. (3) In addition to those negatives, today’s top-tier Black athletes and scholars are being recruited by white, private academies in order to enhance their funding, further undercutting the public schools, which in many communities have become all Black. 

As Watts Boone spoke, she talked about the inequities apparent between the previously all-white Crystal Springs High School and the two all-Black schools she had attended. That condition existed in every district in the state. That was a legacy which white leaders were fighting to preserve. 

Even more devastating, however, were the cruelties heaped upon Watts and other Black students attempting to desegregate all-white schools. She recounted being spat on, being called names, and ostracized. Other Black students reported much of the same hatred and cruelty. One student at previously all-white Central High School in Jackson recalled being singled out and ridiculed in class by his white teacher as having been one of the slaves. That kind of hatred and cruelty has not and cannot be easily erased from the mind or the soul of its victims. Such behavior is also a part of the legacy of Mississippi’s school desegregation process.

It is things such as these that history brings to light. After exposure, those aspects of our collective culture and our social institutions must be rooted-out and eliminated forever. A new set of legacies must be created for us to embrace; ones clearly rejecting the lack of enlightenment and humanitarianism reflected in what was standard behavior of our yesteryears. Otherwise, we will continue to see generation after generation of privileged and prejudiced white people seeking new or at least different ways to maintain an advantage politically, socially, economically, and educationally over other people. Because they are equally endowed mentally and psychologically, the people who are excluded or otherwise oppressed will find ways to challenge white supremacists and the systems supporting white supremacy. That struggle is a part of the human legacy, which is older and larger than Mississippi’s school desegregation legacy.