Plus Ca Change 0
When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days, my school district finally gave in to Brown v. Board of Education, a decision rendered eleven years earlier. (My county had not participated in “massive resistance”; its resistance had been quite passive.)
We “integrated” (this was in 1965) which meant that one very brave black girl (who I am certain was carefully chosen for toughness and resilience) from the black high school joined the white high school’s senior class; no white students moved to the black high school.* The next year, a few more black students joined a few more classes at the white high school.
This was known as “gradual integration.”
Proms and school dances for that and I-don’t-know-how-many subsequent years were then cancelled because one of them and one of us might dance together.
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*Many white students, though, were pulled out of the white high school to attend the new seg academy all-white “private” school.
By the by, whenever I hear anyone complain of “forced busing,” I will remember that I was forced-bused right by the black high school to the white one.
