That is one of the most amazing statements I've ever seen posted in my life that the African-American was okay with segregation in the South. Talk about being delusional.
And the reason they may have been hesitant to integrate was out of fear. The African American in the south feared for their lives all the time. The last time I played poker in Biloxi I could still see the racism and an African American book store owner I spoke with in Atlanta said to me when I was passing through: "Even I don't go to Mississippi."
You get upset because I blame the South for torturing the African-American since this country was formed. And yet it seems to go right over your head that an African-American might be upset when they have to deal with something much worse I.e. institutionalized segregation.
What do you think that segregation represented? What do you think separate drinking fountains and separate bathrooms and separate hotels and separate eating establishments and separate schools represented?
What the people in the South were telling the African-Americans was that they were so repulsed by them that they didn't want to drink at the same drinking fountain they were drinking at, or use the same bathroom, or eat at the same restaurant, or share the same hotel. They were telling the African Americna they were dirty. What if people told that to you? You wouldn't care? Geesh!
How would you feel if people felt that way about you? Can't you even figure something out that simple?
How would you feel if anyone said that to you? Have no ability for empathy at all? And the proof that the African-American was upset about it is not only in the huge demonstrations that took place in the South that forced the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but in the fact that ever sense then, the African-Americans across the country has voted over 90% Democratic in every single election.
And the reason for that is that every single liberal congressional person in the country voted FOR the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Not one liberal congressperson voted against it. It was all conservatives and virtually every Southern congressional person.
And I ask again, why is it that not one state in the South voluntarily integrated.
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| << The idea you think African Amercans were Ok with segregation takes my breath away.>>
Actually, Koan is kind of wrong here. In Arkansas, blacks were more OK with segregation than one might think.
Message #9663 from Katelew at 2/5/2017 7:00:38 PM
<< The idea you think African Amercans were Ok with segregation takes my breath away.>>
Actually, Koan is kind of wrong here. In Arkansas, blacks were more OK with segregation than one might think.
Integration began with Central High in Little Rock in 1959. I was in junior high school there and followed it closely on the news. What most people didn't know and probably still don't know its that it was one sided.
By that I mean, the public schools were ordered to admit black students if black students wished to go there. It wasn't an order for the schools to merge such that everyone went to the same school. African-Americans could keep their own schools if they wanted and the state would fund them as they always did.
The unexpected surprise was that so many chose to remain separate. There were all black schools all over the place--mainly in smaller towns and rural areas, where one black school served a consolidated area. Later it was determined that there were many reasons for this, and oddly enough one of the main reasons was sports. These schools didn't want to give up their football and basketball teams, their cheerleaders, their out of town trips to other black conferences. They also didn't want to give up their own proms and own social clubs. Black teachers were afraid they would lose careers they had decades of experience in. Truly, if you think about it, blacks were facing a lot of major changes by integrating into a white school. They would become the minority, sometimes a tiny minority. Would they get picked for the teams? Would their teachers be asked to stay on? Not to mention would they be bullied and ostracized? The Supreme Court ruled very wisely, in retrospect, when it have blacks to option to proceed at their own pace.
The problem was that so many didn't proceed. So in 1971, I got a phone call from my sister in Hazen, Arkansas. She was taking a position in a school in Stuttgart which was being forced to integrate. By that I mean the nearest black schools were being forced to shut down and switch to Stuttgart High School. The federal government had finally ordered the actual end to segregation twelve years after the first ruling in 1959.
The order came one month before the start of school, and it was a mess. Some of the black kids were looking at hour long bus rides from places close to the delta regions. Black teachers lost jobs, just as they had feared. Class sizes grew, and trailers were brought in as portable classrooms. Protests kept delaying the opening day of school. The first two weeks saw groups boycotting certain classes. They would gather in the halls and open and slam shut locker doors that drove everyone crazy. It all came to a head when some black kids stole a box of the arsenic pellets that were used in rice graineries and sprinkled them in the overhead ductwork of the school. My sister said right in the middle of a class she had students suddenly vomiting on each other. By the time the school was evacuated, whole classrooms were lying on the grass and holding their heads in pain. Her room was at the very end of the building and the fumes were the lowest. She, herself, never felt anything.
The school was shut down and everyone went into a huddle. I've forgotten all the details, but remember that some of the black teachers were brought in as teachers and others were hired as well-paid assistants. Black boys were quickly recruited for the sports teams. One of the most successful things was that the school started hosting dances which are always popular in small town. The students actually got along just fine, and things settled down by Christmas.
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