North Carolina School Board Debate Over Potential Resegregation Sparks Fiery Protests

RALEIGH, N.C. — Protesters and police scuffled Tuesday at a school board meeting in North Carolina over claims that a new busing system would resegregate schools, roiling racial tensions reminiscent of the 1960s.

Nineteen people were arrested, including the head of state NAACP chapter who was banned from the meeting after a trespassing arrest at a June school board gathering.

"We know that our cause is right," the Rev. William Barber said shortly before police put plastic handcuffs on his wrists before the meeting started.

Inside, more than a dozen demonstrators disrupted the meeting by gathering around a podium, chanting and singing against the board's policies.

After several minutes, Raleigh police intervened and asked them to leave. When they refused, the officers grabbed arms and tried to arrest the protesters. One child was caught in the pushing and shoving, as was school board member Keith Sutton, who was nearly arrested before authorities realized who he was.

"Hey, hey, ho, ho, resegregation has got to go," some protesters chanted.

Sutton, the only black member of the board, said he went into the crowd to try and calm things down and encourage officers not to use such strong force. He said he felt insulted that he almost got arrested and believes the officer who tried to detain him owes him an apology.

"I'm just real dismayed and disappointed," Sutton said.

The Wake County School Board has voted multiple times over the last several months to scrap the district's diversity policy, which distributed students based on socioeconomics and for years had been a model for other districts looking to balance diversity in schools. Several school board members elected last year have built a majority in favor of focusing on neighborhood schools.

The board's chairman, Ron Margiotta, said the panel would not be distracted in its effort to "provide choice and increased stability for families."

"This board does not intend to create high poverty or low-performing schools," he said to scoffs from the crowd.

At a morning rally that drew 1,000 people, speakers quoted Martin Luther King Jr., remembered the days of segregated water fountains and likened the current situation to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education battle. Barber talked about America's legacy of racial strife to galvanize the crowd.

"Too many prayers were prayed," Barber said. "Too many lives were sacrificed. Too much blood was shed. Too many tears were shed. We can't turn back now."

Barber's supporters believe the new policy will resegregate schools. They carried signs that read: "Segregate equals hate" and "History is not a mystery. Separate is always unequal."

George Ramsay, a white former student body president of Enloe High School, said it was necessary to keep the diversity policy in place to prepare students for an increasingly connected world.

"It is shortsighted to ignore the way students like me have been enriched by diversity," Ramsay said.

Comments

[Ngonyama]

08:51 AM on 07/22/2010

The idea that this is a black versus white issue if very false. Many white parents and their children are also hit by this. Particularly if they have very gifted children that they want to have in a good magnet school, These schools are going to disappear leaving little choice but to send such children to private schools

As privately OWNED by the board members taking these decisions..

[lp4ju]

12:46 AM on 07/22/2010

seriously ....only in the South

[Ngonyama]

08:47 AM on 07/22/2010

But the people doing it generally come from elsewhere. The locals here are rather proud of a good educational record...

[Nel Pineda]

12:25 AM on 07/22/2010

My professor in POLSCI once said that "personal choice" can be use as reason (in some cases) to segregate some parts of the society. Let's watch this carefully. This story and its meaning could be abused be some.

[celticsrule]

12:07 AM on 07/22/2010

This is happening all over the country. The repugs
have placed their bigoted activiists in office. They
are demonizing black people so white people will
be scared of them and not want to be around them.

This fits their agenda for the race war that they are dying to have..

[dteg]

11:43 PM on 07/21/2010

From what I have read it sounds like people were upset the old board was not getting schools built fast enough to appease the population. So the residents were so upset they were manipulated into electing Palin, Cheney and Bush types, totally incompetent. Never mind that the district was scoring near the top of all school districts. I once lived there and am ashamed that it looks like the city has taken a turn for the worse.

[dteg]

11:46 PM on 07/21/2010

It was a sad day for me when Reagan took office too. I knew his long term strategy would be a disaster for America.

[dteg]

11:35 PM on 07/21/2010

Wake county has one the top preforming school districts in the country. Why do you let these tea baggers force out your old school board and bring in right wingers to drastically change the school district. Wake up Wake County and Raleigh. Do you want the problems of big inner city school districts as you grow and the certain schools decline and drag down the whole system. Wake up Raleigh and get out to vote the next time.

[dastardlydynamo1]

11:09 PM on 07/21/2010

People who are well off and educated above the norm typically share the fallacy that if it worked for them, it is their right to force it on others. That belief along with the hatred of bigots forced their opponents to decide against them in Brown v. Board of Education, enact Johnson's Great Society legislation and enforce both of these in the courts of law.

Now, their hubris has allowed them to embark on the same course of action which was soundly defeated in the past.

It is a truism that he who ignores history repeats is. My only surprise is that supposedly intelligent (but certainly not wise) people prove it today.

I really wish that they would prove me wrong. I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

[JStading]

11:15 PM on 07/21/2010

Brown's mandate that schools take affirmative actions to roll be de jure segregation was never meant to extend into perpetuity. Once the local federal court states that the school has sufficiently remedied segregation and has enacted a "unitary system," programs like busing are not only not necessary, they actually will violate the equal protection rights of the students who are bussed.

[CJHAN]

11:47 PM on 07/21/2010

at the end of the day your ideology would return us to a seprate but equal doctrin and we all know that that doesnt work, if bussing is needed to keep a balaced district then Brown is still needed in that district.

[danwithwolfs]

10:59 PM on 07/21/2010

We black Americans have to stop begging white folk to educate our children. What the black community in NC need to do is take full control of their schools and have the NC board of education guarantee equal funding of all schools. We should have the right teach our child about black history and powerful leaders like Malcolm X. We need to develop more political leaders Like Malcolm X so we can have real change. Force desegregation will not work, it only empower the white community to believe they are better than black community. Why do we continue to give the white community control of our children education?

[pammiethekid]

11:15 PM on 07/21/2010

Keep posting. I think you're kind of out on a limb with your logic, but I also think you have experience I could probably learn from. So keep posting. You may get your fingers slammed, but you might also have something to say!

[Haditup2here]

12:05 AM on 07/22/2010

I understand your post. However, I am also a native of Durham, NC. Unfortunately, a number of Black parents in the Wake public schools are equally responsible for the potential of having the schools roll back into desegregation because they simply did not get out and vote when many conservative-leaning parents were empowered in voting in the people that they wanted. Furthermore, a number of parents (Black&White) pretty much treat the school system as a baby-sitting function for their students. As a matter of fact, most of the people who were protesting the school board were from other districts in NC because they did not want to see the same phenomenon occurring in their precincts. Therefore, I guess what I am saying is that some in the community do not care and will not ever care.

Then there was also the time (fifteen years ago) when the smaller (poorer) school districts of NC had to sue the superintendent and larger school districts (like Wake, Durham, and Chapel Hill) since they were taken a disproportionate amount of federal money even though they have a greater amount of tax revenue, and hence, less need. . . and this is part of the problem with the possibility of re-segregation. Funds get appropriated to the richer districts. They have done it in the past (in NC) and they will do it again if they get their way.

[Intelligentia]

10:54 PM on 07/21/2010

Why do people want to cling onto people who do not want anything to do with them? If they want to re-segregate, let them! The nonesense that integration is necessary to obtain quality education should have been discredited by now. This is what liberals push to make Blacks believe they need Whites sitting by them in the classroom in order to learn. The only thing Blacks should demand and fight for is equal resource allocation. Other than that, let those who do not want anything to do with you go!!!!

[Thirdworldcountrygal]

10:33 PM on 07/21/2010

There have been countless lives lost and families destroyed in the fight against racism. Rosa Parks could have gone the back of that bus, but she knew her decision not to, though dangerous, would have a lasting impact. Now in 2010, we have persons trying to rewrite history and erase persons like Ms. Parks, Emit Till, Martin Luther from our memory. For God's sake, you have Glen Beck, planning a 'performance' on the same day as Martin Luther's famous speech. Is Mr. beck hoping that his will have more of a lasting impact??? In my opinion this racist agenda is a calculated plan to fear monger and create anarchy. I hope all right thinking people will reject this nonsense. BTW what makes one race think it is more deserving than another??? I would love it if someone could give me an honest, coherent answer to this question.

[Tom Joad]

10:32 PM on 07/21/2010

...WaKKKe County SKKKool District...

[Haditup2here]

10:16 PM on 07/21/2010

Part II: As a North Carolina native close to the area in question, I feel I should make a post to provide some insight on the situation.

To all of you d*pwads who kept chanting about the cost and time due to busing, the Wake Public Schools (and to an extent) , the Durham Public Schools were organized based on a Magnet School system. What does this mean? This means that specialized programs at the Middle School and High School were placed at select schools. By consolidating resources in such programs, potential waste has been reduced by limiting redundancy. Therefore, students from other neighborhoods were bused to such schools for the privilege of partaking in such programs. Therefore, diversity was achieve within this framework.

However, (as with a number) of states, there is always a group of people who want to turn back the hands of time. For a number of years (at least in the past decade), conservative-leaning parents have had a standoff with the Wake board of education -- not just on this issue, but on having year round schools. Therefore, when such members did not cave, they voted them out.

[Haditup2here]

10:36 PM on 07/21/2010

Part III:

One would think that if schools were re-segregated due to income, some of the properties would go up, thereby increasing property taxes. However Wake County (just like Cary) uses Durham to subsidize resources like water (through the use of Falls Lake). Therefore, they have managed to keep their property taxes relatively low while residents in Durham pay a premium for property taxes & water usage. Why does this matter? Well, hanks in part to jobs available in the RTP (at least before the downturn of the economy), many people (migrating for the North) have opted to live in Wake County 1.) because of the school system and 2.) because of the cost (at least compared to Chapel Hill). Because of greed, city officials in Raleigh and Cary have tried to ushered in more people to gain more revenue. However, more people meant strain in resources (especially in the periods of drought), more schools to be built (NC doesn't believe in building too many schools vertically in order to accommodate more students per school), and more infrastructure overall. What does this have to do with the subject at hand? Well, it is basically a case of people wanting their cake and ice cream too. If some of the more pr.ejudic.e parents had to pay for what the service within the city cost, they wouldn't harp about having neighborhood schools. It is all about entitlement.

[DoctorABC]

09:48 PM on 07/21/2010

Guys, despite how much fun it is to say some nasty things about the area in question, remember one thing: It is EVERYONE'S responsibility to make sure the nutcases do not get their grubby little paws on our schools and our political bodies. Go out, vote, email/tweet/blog your concerns to the local newspapers (quaint term) and the local reps. Use your power to vote and speak to guide this country towards the perfection of your vision. Don't give up.

This part of NC is, ironically, home of the research triangle park, one of the finest conglomerations of business and government scientific concerns. It is the nucleus of the "turn NC blue" and home to some of the finest universities in the country (even if you don't like basketball). These facts make the discussion of allowing segregation in area schools again that much more heartbreaking.

And yes, I still live in Texas where I have to put up with the idiocies of a school textbook commission who can't admit that white America was ever wrong and a governor who, despite facing billions of dollars of budget shortfall want to spend around 880 million dollars to get these fraudulent history books to our students. Guess what I'm working for to change in Nov. 2010: A new governor and a new textbook commission.

People everywhere else, I beg you to work on your own elected officials. We can't succeed by being only snarky in Huffpost comment blogs.

[Progressive in PA]

09:59 PM on 07/21/2010

Well said, Doc!

[Hillbilly49]

09:42 PM on 07/21/2010

“Just when one didn’t see it coming; the “little baggers” have found a new wedge issue, re-segregation. Come on “little baggers” stand up for the constitution as it was written in 1860. On the other hand, you turn the hands of the clock back to Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, wouldn’t that be peachy. “Little baggers,” this is the issue you have been waiting for. Now wake up your aunt Tess so she can help you-all spell those big words for your signs.

Bless your li’l old bagg’n hearts!”

[Hillbilly49]

09:36 PM on 07/21/2010

South Carolina should be an embarrassment to every American.

[pammiethekid]

11:12 PM on 07/21/2010

Except this is going on in NC, a blue state.

[Paganus]

11:20 PM on 07/21/2010

Only in the last election. It's purple at best.