‘They must be discontented’: racial threat, black mobilization and the passage of school closing policies

Abstract

Existing research demonstrates that black population size in a given area correlates with the passage of racially restrictive policies in that area. This paper examines the mechanisms through which minority population size translates into exclusionary policies. It does so by examining a little-known but critical aspect of US civil rights history: the development of policies which allowed white communities to close their public schools entirely rather than desegregate. Using comparative-historical methods to build on existing quantitative studies, this analysis demonstrates that, while black population size does correlate with the passage of restrictive policies, the adoption of school closing policies was primarily a political strategy used to counter rising black political mobilization. That is, whites were not responding to a demographic threat per se or to increasing contact with blacks, as extant work might suggest. Rather, restrictive policies were a response to increasing political activity and mobilization within black communities.

Keywords:

• Race
• public policy
• threat
• education
• schools
• race relations

Notes

1. What I refer to as the ‘black population’ is, in reality, the ‘non-white population’ as measured by the 1950 US Census. In all eight of these counties, however, the non-white population was almost entirely black. Fewer than four residents in each county were classified as non-white but not black.

2. Sussex and James City counties also adopted school closing plans but were excluded from this analysis on the basis of their geographic location as well as their political and economic characteristics.

3. These figures are from 1960 as they are not available for 1950.

4. Civil rights activists in Southside continued to draw on the resources and networks of these ministers well into the 1960s (Virginia Students' Civil Rights Committee n.d.).

5. The student strike leader, Barbara Johns, was the niece of Vernon Johns, the Alabama minister who preceded Martin Luther King, Jr at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL. Vernon Johns is widely credited with setting the stage for King's civil rights efforts in Alabama. At the time of the strike in Prince Edward, many believed that Barbara got the idea of a strike from her uncle (Smith 1965; Turner 2001).

6. Prior to the establishment of the Defenders, there had been some activity by the Ku Klux Klan both in Prince Edward and throughout Southside.

7. A lawsuit was eventually filed in Powhatan (‘US asked to bar schools' opening’ 1963; ‘3 Virginia areas lose racial tests’ 1963). As in Prince Edward, Powhatan's white community forced the courts to decide whether it was legally required for a county to appropriate funding for its public school system.

8. The black median education levels are also lower for these counties than for the positive cases, but the difference is minimal (4.5 versus 5.5 years of education).