Democratic Primaries
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders was against 'busing' in the 1970s [View all]StarfishSaver
(18,486 posts)While white flight in the '70s is often attributed to "busing," the real cause was desegregation, just as it was in the 60s.
The only difference is that more of the desegregation was court ordered - after so many cities refused to voluntarily comply with the law, black parents sued to enforce compliance. There was a spate of cases in the late 1960s and 1970s, mostly in the north, in which plaintiffs proved rampant and often intentional segregation. The defendants either entered into consent decrees or the courts ordered them to reassign students in order to overcome the segregation they had imposed directly and intentionally or arose from segregated housing that local and federal government were complicit in creating. Busing was the tool used to get children to their new schools, but the problem was the desegregation, not the transportation.
These parents were part of communities that fought desegregation tooth and nail, managing to stave it off for years through defiance of the law. But when the courts for involved and began ordering the school districts to comply with the law, they pulled up stakes and left.
It was the desegregation, not the bus rides.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden