Did You Attend a Segregated School?

[ThomWV]

Poll question: Did You Attend a Segregated School?

Did you attend, at any grad level, a segregated school?

Also, if you don't mind me asking, which state and how old are you?

[ThomWV]

1. Yes, Florida, 61

[goclark]

2. DC and I'm African American , 65

[Bobbie47]

3. No, Illinois

[angstlessk]

4. I was VERY tempted to say NO cause I attended a Catholic School

and as you know...there are NO BLACK CATHOLICS! I could not push that button, however. We did have two black brothers (real not the hood kind) attend when I was in 6th grade WHILE ALL THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN NORFOLK CLOSED DOWN due to (integration)segregation. I recon they just had no other school to attend???

[TexasProgresive]

59. There are black Catholics

I attended a Catholic high school with 3 black students who were exceptional atheletes, scholars and all round good guys. We graduated in 1968.

[angstlessk]

107. oops left off my sarcasm smiley...that is why I capped it..

trying to be silly. Two brothers did attend after the desegregation began in our town and the public schools shut down out of defiance. Catholic schools, however, did not. I was not even aware of all that till I grew up and read about it. My parents said nary a word.

[angstlessk]

108. dupe, sorry

trying to be silly. Two brothers did attend after the desegregation began in our town and the public schools shut down out of defiance. Catholic schools, however, did not. I was not even aware of all that till I grew up and read about it. My parents said nary a word.

[minerva50]

5. No, Annapolis, MD 1950s-60s

My Catholic school, unlike the local public schools at the time, was integrated. I don't know if the few blacks in attendance were Catholics or not, probably their parents wanted them to get a good education.

[ThomWV]

6. I went to school in Montgomery County in the 60's and it was integrated

Public schools.

Actually I went to school in 3 states, Florida, which was segregated when I was in gradeschool, Ohio, which was always integrated as far as I know, although I do not recall any black students in any of the 3 schools I attended there, and then Maryland, where I had both black teachers and black classmates as early as 1956.

[minerva50]

11. That may be true of Montgomery county,

but it wasn't until I got into High School that Anne Arundel schools were integrated, early to mid 60's.

[ThomWV]

18. I might be wrong on that early date

I do know I had a black teacher in 1956 in Montogmery County, but I do not recall a single black classmate prior to 1960.

[minerva50]

28. I just googled the history

of Bates, Anne Arundel's African-American High School. It was in 1966 that they finally integrated with Annapolis High.

[ThomWV]

92. Was that the result of state law or did it say?

It is hard to immagine that a county could hold a policy that was not in accord with state law, but we are talking about Maryland here.

[kwassa]

64. Montgomery County had a segregated junior college ...

built in 1950 that now houses the school board offices for the county. The Carver Center.

I teach in this county. 140,000 students, roughly, and 11,000 teachers.

[ThomWV]

93. Do you mean MJC in Silver Springs/Tacoma Park?

Its been years and years since I was in that area, but as far as I recall the only Junion College in Montgomery County was Montgomery Junior College, over on the eastern side of Silver Springs near Tacoma Park. In fact that was the first 'Junior College' I had ever heard of.

[kwassa]

106. No, it was in Rockville, on 355.

North of downtown Rockville a mile or so, now across from Montgomery College.

[goodgd_yall]

129. That was the way it was in Biloxi, Mississippi too

before the public schools were ordered to integrate.

[JanMichael]

7. Does two non-white kids in my graduating class of 260 count?

It does but most here wouldn't agree.

[EFerrari]

30. I don't understand. Could you say a little more?

Thanks, JanMichael.

[dysfunctional press]

109. i believe that my situation was similar-

i went to a small lutheran high school- it wasn't segregated, but we also didn't have any non-white students until i was a senior, and there was one black student in the freshman class.

[msmcghee]

8. Yes, as did . . .

. . any Caucasian who attended public school in the South in the fifties.

[baldguy]

9. Technically, no.

But there were only three black families with a total of 9 children in a school district of about 5000 students.

[magellan]

16. Same here. n/t

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

10. Went to school in La Jolla Calif. everyone who lived in the area

went to the two schools,(elem. and a Jr. Sr. high school.) The schools were not segregated and had all races. I'm 66 yrs. old.

[angrycarpenter]

12. I went ot a small rural alabama school

1974-1979

This was Crossville Ala. pop. 1500. All twelve grades were in one building. The only black person in the town was one old lady in the nursing home.

The cool kids wore KKK t-shirts to school. The Ag teacher told at least one racist joke a day.

I hated it there. I endured almost daily beatings by the football team. With the absence of blacks all they had was the poor kids and the nerds. I was both. And I defended blacks when someone said something stupid or hateful about them.

The town now has a 50% mexican population. The mexican kids out number the white kids in the high school. It is one of the poorest towns in Ala.

[goodgd_yall]

132. What a miserable situation

That was brave of you to speak up.

[angrycarpenter]

135. I was a gifted child

In a school full of dolts. I hated them and made no secret of it. I would suffer an ass-whipping before I would suffer a fool.

[teach1st]

13. Yes, Dade County, Florida, early and mid-sixties

My elementary school was all white. There was an all black school down the street. I remember riding my bike past it on weekends and noting that everything about that school was in disrepair. If I remember correctly, our schools were finally integrated during my junior high school years, about '65 or '66.

[OmahaBlueDog]

14. No, BUT

I'm in a subgroup which is noteworthy. I was bussed from my predominantly white neighborhood to a predominantly black school in the mid 70s.

At the time: PG County, Maryland. I was bussed from New Carrolton to Columbia Park (down by the District line)

[peace frog]

15. Yes, in Florida

from 1957 through 1966; I'm 55.

[Harry Monroe]

17. I attended public high school in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana

But...we were not segregated by race, but rather by sex. The males in the Parish attended Bonnabel, East Jefferson (where I went), West Jefferson and John Ehret High Schools, while the females attended Riverdale, Grace King, and L.W. Higgins High Schools. This came about in 1964; our racist school board, being forced to desegregate decided that the sexes should be segregated. I guess they didn't want the black guys going to school with our white girls, or something stupid like that. Anyway, it all changed in 1981, when someone finally took the school board to court over it. I graduated from East Jefferson in 1980, one of the last all male graduating classes. I am now 46 and this now is a distant memory for the high schoolers in our parish.

[chixydix]

19. Totally segregated through college, 1963. It's just the way it was.

We had almost no contact with people of different ethnicity.

[ThomWV]

94. Where?

[chixydix]

125. Tulsa

...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

20. No, 56, New York.

[Scout]

21. No, Michigan, 48 n/t

[slackmaster]

22. No, California, 50

:hi:

[kineneb]

67. likewise, 50

the largest minority in NorCal is "Native American"

In high school they had their own club (consciousness raising and all that).

[DarkTirade]

23. No, but in none too far from my district there were several that were artificially segregated.

I.E., the district lines were drawn in such a way as to get the maximum segregation possible. Ridiculous twisted lines, but they managed. My ex sister-in-law grew up out there, and her street happened to be the one they used to join two very seperate areas that were mostly minorities. All the other white kids on the next street over in either direction went to one school district, while she was one of only 8 white kids in her elementary school, and one of only a couple dozen in her high school.

This was in FL, and she'd be 30 now if I recall her age correctly. Central Florida, but not inside Orlando itself. Out in the boonies to the west of Orlando, around Ocoee.

[CTyankee]

24. Yes, legal segregation until I graduated from High School in 1957 in Texas.

Also no Hispanics. This was in Dallas. There were also segregated buses, public restrooms, drinking fountains and movie theaters.

College was not too different. I went to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and I do not recall having any black school mates (and this was in the Fine Arts School!).

[El Supremo]

25. Yes. 57. Kansas then Texas. Integrated after 1967.

[Karenina]

26. SORT OF... I was the "integration!"

I recall a moment in elementary school when "Negroes" were mentioned. EVERYONE turned to stared at me. I quipped, "NEGROES? WHERE??? *I* don't see any!!!" Mrs. Miller needed some minutes to control her laughter as the the tears ran down her face. It was our little secret in-joke. She enlightened my classmates and protected me as much as she could from the poison many brought from their homes.

[EFerrari]

32. LOL!

I was the person of color in my Cupertino classroom and my teacher kept asking me if I was Italian.

lol

[EFerrari]

27. Yes, and in two different counties.

From 1-2 in Daly City, CA, then 3-12 in Sunnyvale, CA, in the late 60s -70s,

I didn't even know it at the time and neither did my Mom.

We later found out about red zoning. Mom was an immigrant and too busy dealing with discrimination and feeding us to figure out the bigger picture at the time.

[tritsofme]

29. The school was segregated in a de facto fashion I suppose.

I don't recall there being any black students until I reached high school.

And that is IL in the 1960s and early 70s.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. No, my elementary school in Beloit, Wisconsin was integrated, 1950s

Then we moved to a suburb of Minneapolis that had no black residents until I was a junior in high school. After that, we had ONE black student in the whole school.

[EFerrari]

34. But you have to wonder, why were there no black students?

Early sixties Silicon Valley boasted some of the best schools in the nation. We had books and paper and everything. We had a school psychologist and our neighborhoods were all brand new tracks, our dads were all working at Moffet Field or for NASA -- unless they weren't like my mom.

It was 15 years before I understood that all the Latinos and black people lived and went to school literally across the tracks.

[Zynx]

51. In many areas there aren't significant African American populations for dozens of miles.

It is not surprising some schools are of one race as a result.

[TahitiNut]

52. The era of "red-lining" and school districts.

In many parts of the US, "red-lining" is still a de facto reality. :cry:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

61. In those days, there weren't a lot of African-Americans in Minneapolis at all

and certainly not in the suburbs. When I was four, we took a trip South, and I had never seen a black person before that--and we lived in the city at the time and went downtown regularly.

It was in the late 1960s and early 1970s that large numbers of black people first moved into the Minneapolis, mostly from Chicago and Milwaukee. (There had long been a small community in St. Paul.)

The black family that moved into my suburb were retired military.

Minneapolis today is diverse to a degree that would have been unimaginable during my childhood: not only African-Americans and Latinos but also large numbers of African-Africans (with the largest communities being Somali and Liberian) and Southeast Asians, mostly Vietnamese and Hmong, as well as small communities from just about everywhere else in the world.

[Hardrada]

79. Which suburb?

I always ask people who say they are from Minneapolis to be more specific since they are nearly all middle class or UMC and all from Osseo, Plymouth, Orono etc etc. My wife and I lived in the city itself for some years.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

83. I spent my high school years in a community near Lake Minnetonka

and that's all the detail I'm going to give.

However, we lived in Minneapolis till I was six and then went to Wisconsin for five years before coming back to the area. I live within the city limits now.

[Hardrada]

85. I wasn't trying to be the FBI! I was just going to say that if

someone mentions MPLS or almost any MPLS suburb that I've got an aunt, a nephew, a cousin or a sister living there! (and a sister in St. Paul near Macalaster).

[izquierdista]

33. No other choices?

I have to say "kind of". There were very few black people in my town when I was growing up. All of their children went to the same elementary school, mostly because that was the neighborhood school where they all lived. At one point, in the mid 60s, the school district decided to go about "desegregating" which was pretty difficult, because there were only enough black students to assign one per classroom if they were to be spread out evenly. But that's what they did, and then when we got to junior high and high school, of which there was only one, it became a moot point.

The larger ethnic group in my town were the Hispanics. California close to the Mexican border has always had a large Hispanic population, and if there was any segregation, it was more along class and income lines than by racial designs. There was also cultural segregation; the football team in high school was all Anglos and Black and Native American, while the soccer team was all Hispanic (with one token Anglo).

(California and 51)

[Blue_In_AK]

35. I didn't attend any segregated schools

although there weren't many minority kids in a couple of them just because that's the way the demographics were set up in the community. My first year at the University of Houston in 1964 was the first year that they had integrated sports there, the great Elvin Hayes, for one. I remember when our football team played Ol' Miss, they had to play in Tennessee or somewhere because Ol' Miss wouldn't let black athletes on their field. Insane.

[mike_c]

36. I'm 53 and started school in Georgia etc during the 1960s....

I voted yes although I certainly don't remember segregation except as a broad social issue at the time. I attended schools with few or no black students-- whether they were actively or passively segregated, I just don't know, but given the time, I'm betting they were actively segregated.

[EFerrari]

37. If you push on it, you'll get your answer.

I understand because as a kid, I don't go looking. My world was my world.

It was only much later as an adult that I got how segregated my town was. fwiw.

[stevedeshazer]

38. Your question isn't clear

I think many in the West will agree.

My high school was not segregated, but when 99% of your town is white, and the three or so kids who weren't white attended, is your school segregated?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

40. Depends. Where all the colorful people living just slightly "out of town"?

:shrug:

99% of my town was white, too. Later I found out that there was a reason for that, it wasn't just an accident.

[stevedeshazer]

43. Your point is partly right

There WAS a reason my little town in Oregon was all white.

[KamaAina]

39. Yes, but not what you're thinking

several of my schools were only for kids with disabilities. Another was a special unit built onto the "real" school as an annex. We got to go over there for chorus 'n' stuff.

This took place in MD, then CT; I am 43.

[RedCappedBandit]

41. No, but..

We had a handful of students who weren't white. Very few people were Black, very few people were Hispanic of any sort.. we had a decent population of Asians.. mostly white.
I graduated in '05, and this is on long island.

In contrast, other neighborhoods on the island are the complete opposite, majority of students being minorities.

I'd consider that segregation, even though it isn't "technically" labeled as such.

[LWolf]

42. Maybe and No.

I attended 10 schools K-12, starting in 1965. Kansas City and So Cal. I can't swear that all the early schools were not segregated; I don't remember if there were non-white kids in classes with me when I was in early elementary schools. I know that my schools from 4th grade on were not segregated.

[XemaSab]

44. De facto, yes

I went to a few schools that were 90% one race. Asian, Black, and White.

[madokie]

45. nope not here

first through the seventh grades there were five of us kids, two guys and three girls, eight through twelve there were around thirty in my class. Graduated in '66 in a class of thirty two. It was about 50/50 Native American and White, no African Americans or Hispanics.

[JDPriestly]

46. Yes, Alabama

I also attended integrated schools in Indiana. I also attended schools in small Iowa towns. They were neither integrated nor segregated. There just weren't any Africa-Americans in the area.

[Richard Steele]

47. No, I just lived in a small town where almost everyone was Caucasian.

IIRC, the extent of our "racial diversity" was a single girl
whose mother was from Vietnam. I think her parents met when her
dad was in the Army back in the late '60s.

[Zynx]

48. Far from it. I went to an elementary school that was part of a busing program.

[Swamp Rat]

49. No, thank goodness

New Orleans, LA

[Thothmes]

50. No, where I grew up there was only one black family

in our school district. They had a boy in elementary school, another in junior high school and their daughter was a classmate of mine in high school.

[Tribetime]

53. Yes 47 ohio

[aikoaiko]

54. economically segregation -- 40

[Solly Mack]

55. Nope

Georgia/mid-40's

[supernova]

56. No, NC and I'm 45

[Bolo Boffin]

57. Yes.

First grade, I attended the local "white flight" academy because I was too young for public school. After that, they let me into public school.

From second to fifth grade, our elementary schools were mostly segregated. We had two on different sides of town, and you attended the one closer to where you lived. The black families that lived closer to the school I attended also went to that school, so that's why I say "mostly."

In the fifth grade, our elementary schools were integrated by court order. Our middle school and high school had already been integrated because of some popular kids (back in the Sixties) who stayed in the public school about the time the "white flight" academy was created. A lot of their friends stayed with them. That is, at least, the story I was told.

In 11th and 12th grade, I attended a magnet school for the arts in Birmingham. It was completely integrated.

This was all in Alabama and I am now 40 years old.

[gollygee]

58. No - my school system was desegretated. Michigan and just under 40 yrs old.

I was googling to find the demographics of my school district (I was guessing around 70% white, 20% black, 10% other) and I found this interesting pdf file from the 70s. http://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12d454.pdf

[Oeditpus Rex]

60. No, Kollyforniya, 51

I feel it also worth noting that I had an aunt who taught elementary school in Monticello, Ark. I recall seeing her class photos in the mid-'60s. The class had a few black kids.

[LeftyMom]

62. Certainly not. I don't think I've ever had a class that had a clear majority of anything.

That's California for you. :shrug:

[kwassa]

63. My wife desegregated a school as a kindergartner in 1965

The first black child in an all-white school.

I was in segregated schools until high school, because of racist housing practices that kept blacks out of suburbs that I lived in. I had no idea at the time that such practices existed.

[riderinthestorm]

65. My town (Wheaton/Glen Ellyn, IL) red lined.

I saw my first African-American/black student in high school and he was the only one in a high school of more than 2000 in 1980. Wheaton/Glen Ellyn was successfully sued for red-lining while I was in high school. That court case wound it's (slow) way through the courts and the African American community ultimately won but that doesn't mean any real substantial progress has been made as the graduating class of 2008 has 5 African Americans in their class.

I live in a solid red, Rethug community. It's sickening. To this day, I am acutely aware of "the black section" of town when I drive around. Since discovering that my grandfather was designated a "mulatto jew" on his Jamaican exit visa that was magically transformed into "white protestant" on his entry visa into Canada in 1902, I am especially sensitive to outrageous racial bias.

[Mz Pip]

124. That's where I'm from

Graduated from Glenbard East in 1967. There were no African-Americans in the town that I recall. Red-lining kept the African-Americans out. THe closest thing we had to people of color were the Puerto Ricans that came from Carol Stream and I don't remember those kids being particularly well received.

Mz Pip

[Samurai_Writer]

66. Yes, Missouri, 47

Catholic school. I don't know if they would have actually turned away a minority, but in 9 years of going to that school (K-8), it never came up. I went to school there from 1966-1975.

[conscious evolution]

68. 45 Georgia

My first two years segregation was still going on.
Desegregation started when I began third grade.

Fifty brazillian private schools opened that year.

[mondo joe]

69. 43, educated in NY state, No: no segregated schools. Did attend a magnet school in

which, as a white kid, I was the minority.

[tammywammy]

70. No, 21, DFW area

It was a white, black, Hispanic and Asian school. I went to a large high school of a little over 4000 students. What I noticed in high school was more self-segregation. My best friend at the time was Korean, was teased by the Asians for spending so much time with the white kids. They even just started calling her white.

[davidinalameda]

71. no-40

but my town was pretty much lily white

very small

[Elwood P Dowd]

72. Yes, Alabama in the early-mid 1960s.

The school integrated the year after I graduated, and there were no major problems. By 1968, the much smaller black high school had merged with the white high school. The man coaching the black school's basketball team became the assistant for the white school's team. He was only about 23 and black, so there was no way they were going to make him the head coach. If he had been white he would not have been head coach because the white guy had been coaching for about 30 years. A few years later the old white guy retired, and the young black guy was promoted to head coach. He is now in his 60s and in his 4th decade as head coach. He has won championships and received just about every high school award imaginable in the state of Alabama. He was not ready to be a head coach at a large and mostly white high school in the turbulent 1960s, but he became an excellent assistant and eventually earned his promotion. The school board promoted him based on his abilities and recommendations from former coaches and players. The color of his skin was never a factor. Hard to believe he's been there almost 40 years.

[Zoigal]

73. Missouri, 79

To my knowledge, all schools, even the higher ed ones, were segregated in Missouri until the early '50s. Never taught in a segregated school (other than in Missouri) though. z

[Hardrada]

74. No. Because I grew up in all-white Norwegian-American

communities which, as far as I know, have still all white high schools. One of the towns has a college where non-whites attend in fluctuating (usually quite small) numbers. Iowa and Minnesota. 63.

[MilesColtrane]

75. Nope

I started first grade in Mississippi in 1968.

We did, however at recess, play "race riot" in which half the kids on the playground linked arms and ran at the other half.
We were just playing out what we saw on the news and nobody ever got hurt.

I, a white boy, always sided with the black kids.

[bicentennial_baby]

76. No, age 31, highly integrated private school, MA

:)

[Greybnk48]

77. Yes, 59 y/o Pennsylvania

Both schools I attended in PA were segregated until the 1960/61 school year.

[McCamy Taylor]

78. 48, started in Huntsville Alabama, school was never segregated even

though Wallace was down south of us acting like a loon. I remember that Birmingham used to seem like another world to me as a child when I lived in Hunstville where my mother was a computer scientist for a NASA contractor. I was born in Atlanta and we had moved to LA and then to Huntsville. I had watched the news and seen stuff about the police turning hoses and dogs on children in central Alabama and so every time we drove to Birmingham I was convinced that cops were going to pull us over and attack us, too. It didn't matter that we were White. I grew up mortally afraid of police from watching that stuff on TV. I thought police lived to attack children.

The only thing I ever encountered that was close to segregation were all White suburban schools when my mom worked at NASA in the Clear Lake area near Houston. That place was a cultural wasteland. I hated the suburbs. The schools are so fascistic. They want to control everything you do, say, think, wear. Urban schools are much better and I attribute a lot of that to the greater freedoms they have to allow to accommodate multiculturalism and also a greater understanding of what it is like to be poor in the US which meant more compassion and tolerance.

I was bussed to one school in Austin. It was a great school.

[Stinky The Clown]

80. No, Bridgeport CT, I am 61. My entire young life was integrated, not just my school.

My first girlfriend was of another race. My friends were of different races and many ethnicities.

I went to public ES and Catholic HS. There were a few Jews in my HS class, and with many non-whites.

[tool_of_the_people]

81. Yes, unfortunately

Chicago, IL. From 1957 to 1966 my elementary schools were all White. My two high schools (1966 - 1970)- one was a vocational school and it was about 3/4 Black, the other a general H.S. and probably equally divided: 1/3 White, 1/3 Black, 1/3 Hispanic.

[Hekate]

82. No. Southern California (1950s) and Hawaii (1957-1965)

Hawaii is so "integrated" it's world-famous for it, LOL. My white parents were one of the few couples in our immediate circle that were both the same color.

I was born in the San Fernando Valley and attended elementary school there until we moved to Hawaii. I don't specifically remember any African-American kids in my school, but we definitely had Latino kids. I still remember thinking Mercedes had the most beautiful hair, so long and thick and straight, while mine was very curly and kept quite short.

Hekate

[Manifestor_of_Light]

84. Yes, Texas, 53.

In school 1960-1972.

Totally white and segregated due to red-lining (real estate agents tripling the price if they showed a house to a black family in my town). A few Hispanic kids.
A very large suburb of Houston (100,000 people).

3,500 students in 4 grades in my high school. One AA kid. His daddy was the janitor at the bank.

Or as my cool government teacher ironically said, "We're integrated. We've got OUR black boy!!".

[datopbanana]

86. no too young

[ribrepin]

87. Yes, Jacksonville, Florida...first grade...1956

We also said the Protestant version of the Lord's Prayer. I didn't know all of it...I was catholic.


I finished my elementary career in Montana and Washington state where we didn't have segregation or school prayer, but the small coastal town I lived in didn't have any blacks in town.

[Laughing Mirror]

88. No, DC, 55

The schools had already been integrated, but most of the whites had already left by the time I entered the system, in 1959.

[Ms. Toad]

89. Depends on what you call segregated.

No African-American students in the school I attended in Nebraska in the 60s - because there were none in the community.

I also taught for 11 years (1978-1989) at an inner city Ohio school, and had a total of one white student during that time.

I would call both of those schools segregated, even though both were segregated by geography, rather than law.

[ThomWV]

91. Segregated by law - or in the case of private schools by choice

If a school is segregated by law it makes no difference if there are no black people in the community to test that law, the schoos are still segregated.

[Ms. Toad]

102. Your poll, so you can define it however you want

Many of us see a much bigger problem of segregation, however, the de facto segregation in schools that occurs when we choose to live in neighborhoods that are racially (class, etc.) isolated.

[ThomWV]

118. Yep, I just thought I'd make it stringent to avoid uncertainty.

I live in a county in which, to the best of my knowledge, there are no black people at all. The schools are, none the less, integrated, in that there is no law prohibiting a black person from attending. Didn't used to be that way.

[Ms. Toad]

127. I don't know what triggered your poll,

But if it was the comment in Obama's speech, he was using segregation in a broad sense.

[ThomWV]

130. I don't listen to candidate's speeches

I go to their websites and read their positions. I know their speeches will be horseshit, no need to watch or listen to them. So if Senator Obama made a comment about segregated schools I did not hear it.

What prompted me to ask the question was this, I wondered how many people here had even the slightest real world experience with the old world of segregation. Notice that about 2/3 do not. Now I have a better idea of how well formed the opinions I see expressed are.

[Ms. Toad]

133. This is his race speech

and it is on his website not specifically designated as a speech. (I didn't listen to it either - but I read it this afternoon from his website so the timing coincidence struck me).

As for real world experience with the old world of segregation - I believe that poll question would have generated quite a different response (at least with your strict definition of segregated schools). School isn't the only place where segregation occurs. I certainly experienced non-voluntary segregation in places other than school (the swimming pool is one example), even though the school was segregated solely by virtue of the local population.

[RebelOne]

90. I always attended segregated schools.

I went to elementary and high school in Miami, FL during the years of segregation. I am now 69 years old. I remember segregated rest rooms and water fountains and blacks having to sit at the back of the bus and not being allowed to eat at white restaurants.

[Ganja Ninja]

95. Mine was essentially segregated.

We had one black kid in HS because there just weren't any black families living in our school district.

[sendero]

96. There were exactly 4 african-americans..

... in my high-school class of about 150. I don't know if they lived in the district or not. This was 1972.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

97. we had exactly NONE until my senior year

and our class was over 500...then two guys moved in (brothers) just after my junior year. The school wasn't segregated by law or anything. There were just no African-Americans in the district. The two guys whose family moved into our district were well received at the school and became very popular.

sP

[trof]

98. 66 - Alabama (Surprise, Surprise.)

Grammar and high school were segregated by law, as were most all 'public' places. I remember 'colored' and 'white' water fountains in department stores, and 'colored' and 'white' waiting rooms at train stations.

By the time I got to the University of Alabama, the 'color barrier' had been broken by Autherine Lucy, at least technically.

I don't remember seeing any black students on campus and for sure in none of my classes.

When I entered USAF pilot training in 1963 there were no black students in my class of 35 or so, and I don't remember seeing any on base in other classes.

[Breeze54]

99. Yes in grade school and no for both high schools in MA / 53 n/t

[datasuspect]

100. if de facto segregation counts

then yes, in the cicero, illinois public schools and parochial schools.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

101. Yes, GA, 62

That was just how it was. It wasn't questioned or discussed, as far as I remember.

btw, mine was the "white" school. What a concept.

[DemoTex]

103. Yes. Georgia. I'll turn 60 in four days.

IIRC, my 1966 graduating class was the last segregated class.

[noel711]

104. No.... South side Chicago in '50's and '60s..

we were all lower working class kids,
struggling to make it.

All of us, italians, germans, swedes,
hispanics, blacks, even some jews.

We had no idea what segregation was...
we thought the differences were the
upper crust North Siders (where a certain candidate grew up)
and us South Siders..

[Fredda Weinberg]

105. I'm 48. Even my yeshiva had Blacks. n/t

[csziggy]

110. Yes, Florida, 55

While I was in elementary school, our schools were integrated. My cousins were sent to a segregated church school to avoid it. I remember my parents discussing whether or not to send us - Dad was for it, Mom's attitude was that we would have to live in an integrated society so we should learn to live with every one.

My cousins have grown up to be Republicans in Katherine Harris' home county. Their children are still going to segregated church schools All of my siblings grew up to be liberal Democrats and their children have friends of every ethnicity. Guess which group of kids are better equipped to live in our modern world?

[Fredda Weinberg]

119. Well, having attended both parochial and public school, the answer is obvious

But it's easier to maintain family traditions when there's no competition, so I'm not surprised your family had tensions as well. But a church school, per se, does not necessarily discriminate on the basis of color.

[noonwitch]

111. There weren't a lot of black kids, but there were some.

I've heard that Kentwood's racial makeup has changed since 1982. There was even a black mayor there a few years back, a republican.

But there was no official segregation in the 70s and early 80s. In elementary and middle school, I don't really remember there being any racial issues-everyone hung out with everyone else-there really weren't very many black kids at either my elementary or middle schools.

In high school, things were a little different, as there were more black kids, as student populations from two middle schools converged. The black kids suddenly had a large enough group to hang with.

[Buzz Clik]

112. I went to high school just as busing was instituted. (I'm 54)

I was among the white kids "bused" (were had to provide our own transportation) to a school across town.

Our schools were kinda segregated before that. I was attending a predominantly white suburban school and was shipped off to the "inner city" high school which, prior to busing, was about 35% minority.

[lunatica]

113. No, Fayetteville North Carolina graduated 1967

All the rest of the schools were segregated or had just started 'integrating' by enrolling one black student into the all white schools, but I went to the school where the army brats went (Fort Bragg Army base). Blacks, Puerto Ricans and whites all got along better than they do today. There was no tension nor did anyone think it was odd. I guess being Army brats was the equalizer, so no one was 'poor' or 'rich' or underprivileged or overprivileged. It was interesting to watch all the tension and the stereotypes in the outer world, when we knew how natural it was to be friends with each other.

[Virginia Dare]

114. Yes, until 1972 when it was fully integrated..

through a busing program. I was in the 5th Grade.

Actually before that we had one black kid in the school, and he was also one of the most brilliant people I've ever known in my life. I often wonder what happened to him. We also had a couple of black teachers.

[LiberalEsto]

115. Not officially

but I lived in a town where nobody who was black could buy a house. Some communities in the town also banned Italians and Jews. This was Wayne, NJ, 20 miles from NYC, in the 1950s-60s. In 5th grade there was one Jewish girl, and we used to walk home for lunch together. Other kids told me I shouldn't walk with her or talk to her because she was a Jew. I ignored them, but the girl kept to herself and probably didn't want to risk hanging out with me.

By the time I reached high school there were lots of Italians and Jews, and even one black girl two grades behind me. I tried to make friends with her and she told me that she had never been allowed to get a seat on the school bus, and that people spat on her.

One guy who ran for school board in my junior year publicly stated that Jews shouldn't be allowed on the Board of Ed because they spent too much money on schools. Some of us kids picketed him.

I hated that town. I left for college at age 17, and never went back there to live.

[michreject]

116. Detroit Public Schools

Pershing.

[Kitty Herder]

117. No, but there was only one person who was a racial minority.

She was Navajo. Everybody else was white.

[napi21]

120. I'm not sure how to answer you? I attended a Catholic school,

and I'm sure no child would have been turned away, but there were no minorities living anywhere near me. I've tried to think back to when the first time was when I met a black person, and I honestly think it was on my first job. Yes, I'm old, and I was in 1sr grade when we got our first TV, but even then, I don't think there were any blacks on screen.

[hyphenate]

121. My school was segregated, but not in the way you mean

It was all girls. Girls' Latin School, the counterpart to Boston Latin School (we called it Boys Latin School), an old fashioned, traditional college prep school where boys and girls spent very little time together, but somehow, learned more along the way. I can't deny it made us less distracted by the opposite sex, but it sure created more social anxiety.

[kwenu]

122. No-38-Texas.

[CitizenRob]

123. My school was effectively segregated because of populace demographic.

[seasat]

126. I got to attend school in GA as they mandated integration, even saw a riot.

Started in an all white public elementary school, then an all white private school, followed by a recently integrated public middle school, and integrated high school.

The middle school was kind of rough. We had a riot one day that started on the bus I was riding. A couple of African American girls were cutting up. One threw a pin cap and it missed it's target hitting a white kid. The white kid was one of the school bullies who cussed the girl and called her a "stupid black bitch". The group of girls yanked him out of his seat and started beating the snot out of him. The bus driver stopped at the school and got everyone immediately off the bus. The fight spread like wild fire and soon half the school was in a black versus white fight. I wisely stayed clear of everyone at the edge of campus. Police were called out and the school was locked down. Interestingly, it never made the papers. Fortunately race relations settled into a detente by the time I was in high school. Everyone, except for a few of us, kept to their own race. You'd go into a pep rally and you'd have blacks in one section and whites in another. Now that I'm in my forties and living in another state, the whole experience seems kind of surreal.

[goodgd_yall]

128. Yes, I attended one in Mississippi

During first and second grade between 1960 and 1962. Everything was segregated, even the beach. This was in Biloxi, Mississippi. I thought the whole place was wicked and it's hard for me to shake that opinion even now, post-Civil Rights Act.

[mitchum]

131. Yes, the public schools were integrated when I was in the 3rd grade (1968)

[recoveringdittohed]

134. Yes, Tennessee, 56

Was in segregated public schools through tenth grade. Integration was being phased in in the mid 1960's in grades a few years behind me. Busing began in late 1960's there.

[Blue_Roses]

136. my school was segregated until I hit the seventh grade...

then integration started. I remember it well...

[intheflow]

137. No, but it might as well been.

Grew up in the lilly-white 'burbs. For instance, my high school was a regional high school, covered two towns. We had 2-3 African American kids, no Latino, only 1 Asian I knew of (and she had been adopted by a white family). We weren't legally segregated, but we were economically and socially segregated. This was in Western Massachusetts in the '70's and early '80's.

[Piltdown13]

138. Not legally, no -- too young for that (32)

But my high school was what might legitimately be considered de-facto segregated -- probably close to 90% Latino when I was there, and only a handful of African-Americans and other minorities, the rest white. Of course, the city itself was probably about 75% Latino, and undergoing such rapid population growth that the attendance zones for many of the older high schools like mine just got smaller and smaller geographically. Didn't help that the second-largest group (whites) tended to be concentrated in a few neighborhoods -- schools in those areas looked pretty integrated, but the others...not so much.

[galledgoblin]

139. 22; no, I didn't attend a legally enforced segregated school

but easily 95% of the district was white, the majority blue collar laborers.