Having lived in the Mississippi Delta for a decade, I know first hand the harsh toll that a non-integrated, failing public school system takes on a community.
Pretty much every city in that region is losing people at an astounding rate. One civic leader there told me projections are that every non-highway in the Delta will be a gravel road within 20 years. As the population falls and businesses leave, there’s just not enough money to maintain the infrastructure, which is particularly stressed by the heavy loads of grains that travel on rural roads. The solution, he said, will be grinding those roads back into gravel. Talk about a step backwards.
And all of those problems relate back to a failure to effectively integrate the public schools. The reasons are many.
For one thing, the federal orders that came down in the late 1960s and early 1970s ordering integration — after districts took their sweet time following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared “separate but equal” schools unconstitutional — were done in what seems to be a haphazard manner in the Delta.
In some communities like Greenwood and Clarksdale, the black high school was closed and the students moved to the white high school. That proved to be a successful model as those communities retained integrated high schools for several decades, although they are now mostly all black at the public schools as the white population has fallen past a tipping point over the past 25 years.
At the same time, in other cities like Greenville and Indianola, the white high schools were closed and students sent to the black high schools. That didn’t work as all the white students immediately transferred to private academies and haven’t returned.
The effect on those communities has been great. The mostly all-black public schools suffer from a lack of resources because there’s not the overall community support and dollars for extra projects coming in. There is also often a culture of corruption where the school districts are treated more as job programs for friends and family than learning institutions.
Middle- or upper-class black families are more and more going to private schools, often even at the academies that began after the integration orders. Meanwhile, poor black families are trapped in failing schools. Middle-class white families, too, are squeezed out by the high costs of private school tuition.
I say all this to bring it back to that I’m thankful for people like Coach Charles Boston, who spoke about the peaceful integration efforts in Columbia during a black history program Thursday at Columbia High School, who have done hard work, often difficult and sensitive, to keep this city’s public schools integrated and successful. It makes a difference to young families like mine and for the health of the community as a whole.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. He may be reached at csmith@columbianprogress.com or (601) 736-2611.
