The recent controversies surrounding Joe Biden’s anti- school busing collaborations with racist politicians from the south has for the moment aroused new comment on segregated America. The New York Times published an excellent review of the history of school desegregation by Nikole Hannah-Jones, “It Was Never About Busing: Court-ordered desegregation worked. But white racism made it hard to accept.” As the article notes the yellow school bus has been in use for almost a hundred years. White children have been bused to schools for decades to good results. But when used to desegregate schools they became a convenient symbol for white supremacists. Politicians and locals alike jumped on this innovation in racist political rhetoric.
Here are a couple of charts from the article. Note that the liberal Northeast has been the most vigorous and successful in resegregation.
Other Factors Creating Segregation
Hannah-Jones does mention that school segregation is just one of many government led and sanctioned practices that have created and maintained America as a very segregated place. We have noted this in earlier posts:
Recently Noted – 1930s Redlining and Segregation Today
Affirmative Action For Whites – began in the 1930s
