The True Meaning of Racial Integration, Then and Now

By Andrew Grant-Thomas, Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute

On Monday, September 23, 1957, more than 1,000 white residents of Little Rock, Arkansas gathered in front of Little Rock Central High School and screamed their rage at the nine children who would soon become its first black students. Police secreted the nine into the building through a side entrance, but the threat of a riot later compelled the students to flee.

What was the meaning of racial integration that provoked these white citizens of Little Rock to such a hateful response?

Much has changed. Today, the Little Rock Nine are widely hailed as heroes of the civil rights movement their courage helped catalyze. Whereas in 1956 only two in ten white Southerners with a high school degree supported school integration in principle, by 1986 nine in ten did. This is good news.

Sadly, the distinction between now and then fades as we move from questions of principle to practice.

Most black and Latino students today attend majority-black and majority-Latino schools, respectively. In many large metropolitan areas like Cleveland, New York, Detroit, and Chicago, large majorities of nonwhites or whites would have to change neighborhoods for the groups to be equally distributed across the region.

What, then, is the meaning of racial integration for us today?

Many of the answers to that question are well-known, even if we hesitate to acknowledge them. Many whites fear that an influx of minorities will precipitate declines in property values; school overcrowding and deterioration; increases in crime, noise, and untidiness; and so on. Such fears have led many whites to avoid, or leave, neighborhoods and schools perceived to be integrated or integrating.

In turn, anticipated and actual hostility from their would-be neighbors can leave racial and ethnic minority group members reluctant to enter neighborhoods and schools in which whites comprise large majorities.

We cannot and should not discount these concerns. But we must recognize that the skepticism expressed by many attaches only to the very thin expression of integration typically found in some neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. There is an alternative vision of what integration might mean. We might call this vision “true integration.”

In the context of our schools, true integration moves beyond desegregation – beyond removing legal barriers and merely facial alterations in the racial make-up of schools – to implementing the founding ideals of this country.

Rather than erasing racial and ethnic differences, true integration legitimizes the historical, intellectual, and cultural contributions of all groups. It recognizes that identities are constantly evolving and need to be embraced, rather than threatened. Truly integrated schools equip students with the tools they need to participate in our increasingly pluralistic democracy. True integration celebrates the very diversity that segregation tries to contain and assimilation tries to negate.

Something akin to this vision of integration is well worth the struggle.