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CORE and De facto Segregation in the North

Northern states dealt with de facto school segregation, meaning that segregation was based on social custom and residential patterns. Although many white northerners believed that segregation between blacks and whites was preferred by both races this was not the case. Much of the attention of school integration was based on the South immediately following Brown v. Board. During early 1960's, the Black Power Movement began to pick up in the North. Concerns were based on inadequate housing, job discrimination, and school zoning policies that created all-black and all-white schools. These zoning policies created an unfair advantage for white public schools funded by a wealthier all-white tax base. For reference,

CORE's involvement with northern school segregation began in 1960 during the New Rochelle School struggle in New York. For years the black community had been trying to get a new facility for the poorly kept Lincoln Elementary School, which had a population that was 93% African American, to no avail. That fall, nine African American families refused to take their children to Lincoln and instead tried to enroll them in all-white schools but did not succeed. During a parent-led sit in at one of the schools, police arrested and incarcerated several of the parents. This event spiked a new interest in de facto segregation, before this event several people in the North believed school segregation and racial hostility was a Southern problem.


CORE became involved with this event by leading a grass-root protest in the New York community. CORE leaders organized picketing events and wrote several letters to the superintendents. This event sparked several other protests in northern cities and eventually led to busing systems in the 70's.

 

 

Sources:

James Leonard Jr. and Lula Peterson Farmer Papers, 1908, 1921-1999, Box 2R569, Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.