Segregation in the North? No, Only seen in the south

Historically, there were Civil Rights Movement activists in the north that fought for the same equality that colored people in the south wanted, but today only the southern activist struggles are remembered and praised. This is due to people in the north (and other parts of the country) wanting to get rid of segregation in the south by supporting their efforts but not applying that understanding to their own segregation problems (Theoharris). Many of the northern cities, in response to the call for desegregation from the Brown v. Board of Education, decided that they would find ways in which they could keep their schools segregated while not legally calling it that (Theoharris). One city that particularly used legal loopholes in segregation language was New York City (NYC). They decided to go about calling the clearly segregated schools and neighborhoods the results of ‘natural segregation’ via housing and having ‘neighborhood schools’ instead of predrawn gerrymandering that clearly segregated certain black neighborhoods from white ones (Theoharris). By calling segregation ‘natural’ and not organized, it put the problem of segregation in the hands of the black community and not the white population who controlled what the housing and schooling looked like. In doing this, the north’s view of segregation in the south was due to laws in place which made it ‘de jure’ or by state law where the ‘natural’ segregation in the north was ‘de facto’ or just by happenstance (Theoharris). Another issue that black and latino parents had was the school board and white community claiming that their children were uncultured, and it was their fault that they didn’t take school seriously, which led to various efforts to get NYC to acknowledge their segregation. Some of these efforts were the creation of Parents in Action who picketed in front of city hall in 1957, the creation of the Harlem Nine mothers that kept their children out of school in 1958, and a large walkout in 1963 where 40,000 teachers and students didn’t go to school in response to the school board of education not making efforts to desegregate their school system (Theoharris). 

NYC was not the only northern city that tried really hard, not only to stop desegregation, since Boston also didn’t acknowledge their own hypocrisy with their line of logic that they used to justify not desegregating their schools. In Boston, the white community and their school boards decided not to desegregate and justify that decision by saying that they would be ruining their own white kids’ education as the black students were ‘problem children’ who didn’t care about their own education (Theoharris). This led to the idea of ‘forced busing’, which would be when those black ‘problem children’ had to ride buses to get to the currently white schools to promote desegregation, which white families were violently against. They claimed that the buses that could potentially get black children to white schools would be a waste of taxpayer money (which was the white families) since it would not only harm their children’s education but also the black children’s education, since they would be getting rid of ‘neighborhood schools’ and thus displacing children (Theoharris). It came to a head in the lawsuit Morgan v. Hennigan, where it was found that Boston was knowingly participating in segregating schools after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. When Boston had to deal with the aftermath of that ruling, the white public started to get aggressive toward the new black students and the community of Boston fought against desegregation (Theoharris).

I have never really thought about the Civil Rights Movement having to fight for equality anywhere except the South, but by reading Long Movement Outside the South: Fighting for School Desegregation in the “Liberal” North by Jeanne Theoharris, it has made me realize this wasn’t true. To me, that shows how much of history has been altered by those who are in power since I was taught segregation only happened in the south to that extent. I did have some understanding that segregation happened in the north, but I never thought it was that prolific and that people in the north could be that hypocritical. To that point, I think we are still seeing the effects of the North not accepting desegregation, since even today there are clearly defined neighborhoods and schools that have more white or black populations than others and those same misunderstandings of culture are around today as well.