NC's History of School Diversity
Public Schools First NC believes that school diversity still matters, so pushing back on the resegregation of our schools is a battle worth fighting. The video playlist below from PSFNC’s YouTube channel is an original series highlighting NC’s History of School Diversity and honoring North Carolinians who contributed to the cause of Black education and school integration.
Turn on captions with the CC icon at the bottom of the video player and click on the playlist icon at the top right corner to select from the list of episodes:
The videos include authentic North Carolina images from the state archives and library, university libraries and resources, local newspapers, and yearbooks. A full list of references, sources, and credits are in the description box of each video. The article below covers the key events and trends that have occurred since Brown v Board of Education in 1954.
Since Brown v. Board of Ed (1954)
Even though de jure segregation was ruled unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a “massive resistance” movement against federal intervention was led by segregationists in Southern states for decades. During the 1950s and 1960s, Southern state legislatures enacted hundreds of laws and resolutions preventing or undermining public school desegregation. The Court’s “with all deliberate speed” ruling in Brown II (1955) was deliberately vague because of concern over states’ rights, which allowed states to purposely delay and prevent integration.Â
North Carolina was a leader in circumventing Brown by immediately passing a Pupil Assignment Act that shifted student assignment decisions to local authorities and removed all overtly racial language from laws. Black students were then systematically denied access to white schools based on vague criteria that were difficult to appeal or challenge as racial.
North Carolina’s strategy to resist school desegregation, later nicknamed “the North Carolina way,” did not rely on overt racist demagoguery or direct defiance of federal authority—tactics practiced unsuccessfully in other states such as Virginia, Arkansas, and Alabama. Instead, it used a legalistic defense of racial segregation that proved to be far more formidable.
— Karl E. Campbell, 2006 – NCpedia
Top-ranking state leaders were appointed to a committee that passed the Pearsall Plan, which approved the use of even more extreme measures like shutting down public schools and giving white students vouchers to attend segregated private schools. However, the state’s districts had so successfully prevented integration through the Pupil Assignment Act and “freedom of choice” plans that simply allowed families to request a transfer for their student to a white school, that these measures were not needed.Â
Some southern states, including North Carolina, allowed “token integration” in urban areas during this period. In 1957, President Eisenhower sent National Guard to protect the Little Rock Nine for the entire school year. Yet Dorothy Counts, the first Black student to attend a white school in N.C. that same year, only lasted four days in a Charlotte high school due to threats and harassment organized by the local white citizen’s council—without any intervention by the school or government officials. Even in Little Rock, public schools were closed the following school year and former Black teachers volunteered to teach Black students who could not afford private education. Progress was slow and subject to major setbacks for the next decade.Â
The U.S. Supreme Court was hesitant to tell states when and how to integrate their schools, but with Green v. County School Board of New Kent (1968) the “Green factors” were established to measure a school system’s compliance by analyzing data about its schools, classes, faculty, extracurriculars, and other resources. In Alexander v. Holmes (1969), the “all deliberate speed” standard was overturned and court orders for specific desegregation plans could be issued with actual compliance benchmarks. North Carolina was not fully desegregated until after the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1971) decision that led to court-ordered busing.Â
Absent a constitutional violation, there would be no basis for judicially ordering assignment of students on a racial basis. All things being equal, with no history of discrimination, it might well be desirable to assign pupils to schools nearest their homes. But all things are not equal in a system that has been deliberately constructed and maintained to enforce racial segregation.Â
— Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
The resulting anti-busing movement and the Court’s self-imposed limits on its continued intervention put an end to most court-ordered desegregation plans within 15-20 years. The peak of integrated schools occurred in the 1980s. At that time, the gap between Black and white students’ test scores narrowed and schools became more equitable. Between 1970 and 1990, the Black-white gap in educational attainment decreased.
North Carolina districts used a variety of other tactics like eliminating Black educators, school district gerrymandering, and deeply biased tracking systems and discipline policies that limited the positive impact of integration efforts. As schools were consolidated, Black students were bused to white schools, white teachers were put in charge of integrated classrooms, and Black teachers were demoted to substitute status or fired—often on the basis of newly-instituted, often biased, testing and accreditation requirements.Â
By the end of the 1980s, public attention turned to the grim outlook of America’s public education system reported in A Nation at Risk and a push for greater accountability testing. Swann was overturned in 2000 and by Parents Involved (2007), the Court ended the use of race in school assignment plans to correct racial imbalances in K-12 schools (except for the few instances where a district has not yet been deemed unitary or desegregated).Â
After the Parents Involved decision, focus shifted from racial balance to socioeconomic (SES) balance as measured by eligibility for the Free and Reduced Lunch program. Because research has shown inequalities between Black and white students cannot be fully explained by SES, it cannot be relied on solely as a proxy for race but is strongly related.Â
Addressing the SES imbalance and inequality in North Carolina schools has been a challenging task. In 2010, successful SES-conscious busing programs like those used in Wake County Public Schools met political backlash and were scaled back in favor of controlled choice plans. Despite this, academic studies of the 2000-2010 WCPSS program reveal potential diversity strategies for the future.Â
We believe the story of Wake County’s socioeconomic reassignments should embolden equity-oriented policymakers in Wake County and across America. By building on the WCPSS model, policymakers can realize the profound benefits of educational diversity, even in an era when courts subject racially sensitive desegregation efforts to sharp scrutiny and school-choice plans provide new opportunities for students to avoid socioeconomically diverse schools.Â
— Student reassignments achieve diversity without academic adversity (Domina et al., 2021)
Persistent de facto segregation related to housing and school choice policies has been exacerbated by drastic cuts to public education funding by the North Carolina General Assembly. As of 2024, funding for the Leandro Remedial Plan to address gaps in educational opportunity for low-wealth schools has yet to be fully secured.Â
Share Your Story!
In 2024, North Carolina schools are less integrated than they were in the1970s when court orders and busing were required to desegregate our school systems. We must push back on policies that fuel this pattern of resegregation by race and social class. Help us convince voters and policymakers that school diversity is worth fighting for!
PSFNC is looking for North Carolinians to share their stories about school diversity in NC over the years including the eras of segregation, desegregation, integration, and/or resegregation.
- We would love to hear from current or former students, educators, parents, or leaders representing all backgrounds and perspectives from all over the state.
- There are different options for how you can share to fit your preferences and time commitment.Â
- If you know someone who has an important story to share, please share this form with them.Â
- We would also welcome any recommendations for historical people we can learn more about online or with a submitted resource.Â
Resources
NCpedia online encyclopedia, an ongoing collaboration of the State Library of North Carolina, the Encyclopedia of North Carolina (UNC Press), and the ANCHOR project (UNC School of Education)
The Untold Story of the North Carolina Constitution short documentary video by Every Child NC, 2022
Deep Rooted: A Brief History of Race and Education in North Carolina report by the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), 2019
North Carolina School Desegregation & Resegregation Timeline interactive timeline by the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity, Public School Forum of NC, 2021
Greater than Equal: African American Struggles for Schools and Citizenship in North Carolina, 1919-1965 book by Sarah Caroline Thuesen of Guilford College (UNC Press), 2014
Wake: Why the Battle Over Diverse Public Schools Still Matters book by Dr. Karey Harwood, 2024
Watch PSFNC’s webinar conversation with Dr. Harwood about her book, Wake: Why the Battle Over Diverse Public Schools Still Matter.
References
Amos, L. (2021). Eliminating School Discipline Disparities: What we know and don’t know about the effectiveness of alternatives to suspension and expulsion. Mathematica Blog. https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/eliminating-school-discipline-disparities-what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-the-effectiveness
Billings, S. B., Deming, D. J., & Rockoff, J. (2013). School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(1), 435–476. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/129/1/435/1896854
Brabham, R., & Supreme Court of the United States. (2006). Primary Source: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. In J. Dease, State Library of North Carolina, D. Walbert, & UNC School of Education (Eds.), ANCHOR: A NC History Online Resource. NCpedia.org. https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/swann-v-charlotte
Campbell, K. E. (2006). Pupil Assignment Act. In W. S. Powell (Ed.), Encyclopedia of North Carolina. University of North Carolina Press; NCpedia.org. https://www.ncpedia.org/pupil-assignment-act
Cannato, V. (n.d.). The Controversy over Busing. Bill of Rights Institute. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-controversy-over-busing
Chang, A. (2017). School segregation didn’t go away. It just evolved. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/27/16004084/school-segregation-evolution
Charlotte N.C. School Administrative Unit. (1956). Application for Change of Pupil Assignment [Document]. In Race & Education in Charlotte. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. https://speccollexhibit.omeka.net/items/show/62
Chen, J. M. (2006). With All Deliberate Speed: Brown II and desegregation’s children. Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, 24(1). Minnesota Legal Studies. https://ssrn.com/abstract=903183
Domina, T., Carlson, D., James Carter III, Lenard, M., McEachin, A., & Perera, R. M. (2021). Student reassignments achieve diversity without academic adversity. The Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2021/09/01/student-reassignments-achieve-diversity-without-academic-adversity/
Equal Justice Initiative. (2018). “Massive Resistance.” Segregation in America; EJI.org. https://segregationinamerica.eji.org/report/from-slavery-to-segregation.html
Every Child NC. (2022). The Untold Story of the North Carolina Constitution [Video Documentary]. In YouTube: Every Child. https://youtu.be/ER5VU4TGJgg
Greenhut, S. (2020). Striking down “freedom of choice” plans for school desegregation: Green v. New Kent County. National Archives Education Updates Blog. https://education.blogs.archives.gov/2020/03/11/green-v-new-kent-county/
Hannah-Jones, N. (2019). It Was Never About Busing. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/opinion/sunday/it-was-never-about-busing.html
Hubbard, S., & Gordy, S. (2023). The Lost Year. The Lost Year Project. http://thelostyear.com/
Kirp, D. L. (2012). Integration Worked. Why Have We Rejected It? NYT Opinion; The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration-worked-why-have-we-rejected-it.html
Library of Congress. (1973). CMS students after the Swann vs. Charlotte Mecklenburg Board of Education ruling [Photograph]. In Queen City Nerve. https://qcnerve.com/desegregation-in-charlotte/
Long, C. (2020). A Hidden History of Integration and the Shortage of Teachers of Color. National Education Association. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/hidden-history-integration-and-shortage-teachers-color
Martin, D. (1957). Dorothy Counts, 15, is taunted and harassed by white students at Harding High School in Charlotte, NC [Photograph]. In Rare Historical Photos. https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dorothy-counts-iconic-photograph/
Miller, E., & Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity & Opportunity. (2021). North Carolina School Desegregation & Resegregation Timeline [Interactive Visual]. In Public School Forum of North Carolina. https://www.ncforum.org/ncschooldesegregationtimeline/
Momodu, S. (2016). Dorothy Counts (1942- ). BlackPast. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/counts-dorothy-1942/
Morland, J. K. (1963). Token desegregation and beyond. Digital Collections – James T. McCain Papers, 1957-1972. https://digital.tcl.sc.edu/digital/collection/p17173coll35/id/1595
Potter, H. (2019). Integrating Classrooms and Reducing Academic Tracking. The Century Foundation. https://tcf.org/content/report/integrating-classrooms-reducing-academic-tracking-strategies-school-leaders-educators/
Rossell, C. H., & Armor, D. J. (1996). The Effectiveness of School Desegregation Plans, 1968-1991. American Politics Quarterly, 24(3), 267–302. https://www.bu.edu/polisci/files/people/faculty/rossell/papers/EffectivenessSchoolDeseg.pdf
Roy, E., Ford, J. E., & Center for Racial Equity in Education. (2019). Deep Rooted: A brief history of race and education in North Carolina. CREED via EdNC. https://www.ednc.org/deep-rooted-a-brief-history-of-race-and-education-in-north-carolina/
Schutz, J. C., & McRae, E. G. (2006). White Citizens’ Councils. In W. S. Powell (Ed.), Encyclopedia of North Carolina. University of North Carolina Press; NCpedia.org. https://www.ncpedia.org/white-citizens-councils
Severance, C., & WRAL News. (2022). Leandro: The case for a sound basic education [Video Documentary]. https://www.wral.com/28-years-later-nc-schools-still-seeking-leandro-lawsuit-s-promise-of-a-sound-basic-education/17382276/
Startz, D. (2020). The achievement gap in education: Racial segregation versus segregation by poverty. The Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2020/01/20/the-achievement-gap-in-education-racial-segregation-versus-segregation-by-poverty/
Thro, W. E., & Russo, C. (2010). Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 – An overview with reflections for urban schools. Education and Urban Society, 41(5). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228185332_Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v_Seattle_School_District_No_1_An_Overview_With_Reflections_for_Urban_Schools
Thuesen, S. C. (2006). Pearsall Plan. NCpedia; University of North Carolina Press. https://www.ncpedia.org/pearsall-plan
Virginia Museum of History & Culture. (2024). The Green Decision of 1968. VirginiaHistory.org; The Virginia Historical Society. https://virginiahistory.org/learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/green-decision-1968
Wake County Public School System Student Assignment Task Force. (2011). Wake County Public School System Student Assignment Plan: Appendix A – Reassignment Figures and Maps [Color Map]. In The Pulse, NC Policy Watch. https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Appendix-A-Reassignment-Maps-and-Figures.pdf
by Nancy Snipes Mosley,
PSFNC staff member and former high school Social Studies teacher
Last updated 7/27/2024