The Desegregation Movement

Slavery and segregation are some of the most shameful facets of American history. They left a legacy of racial tensions and inequality in their wake for previous generations to fix and address. While the landmark decision Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954 found that states could no longer maintain or establish laws allowing separate schools for black and white students. This was the beginning of the end of state-sponsored segregation (Georgetown.edu, 2018). However, it wasnt until ten years later that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially ended segregation, but the desegregation movement took much time, and its effects are still being seen to this day. This paper will discuss the many facets and issues connected to the desegregation movement.

De Facto Segregation was a term used during racial integration efforts in schools during the 1960s to detail circumstances where the legislation no longer supported segregation, but where school segregation continued nevertheless (Law.cornell.edu).

As some experts explain, de facto segregation generally occurs as a result of the patterns of residential decisions. The literal translation of de facto essentially means in practice which demonstrates a key aspect of this term: segregation that occurred because of the behavior of white people. Even though the legal aspect of segregation had ended after the Brown v. Board of Education, de facto segregation was still practiced by many bitter southerners. An example of de facto segregation could be seen as the White Flight. The White Flight was a mass migration of white citizens after the integration of the schools. Parents of white children enrolled their students in private schools and/or moved to the suburbs (Lesniak, 2016). Hence, while segregation was no longer a legal issue, white citizens in parts of America, particularly the American south, were set on maintaining separation and holding sacred their racist beliefs and behaviors. Some historians view such behavior as an example of the limitations of the legislation.

On the other hand, De Jure segregation refers to segregation that is support by the law, as de jure can be interpreted to mean by or according to law. Some of the ugliest laws in America were ones, which supported segregation, known as Jim Crow Laws. Jim Crow laws were extensive and ensured that segregation permeated all facets of American life, establishing segregation in barbershops, amateur baseball leagues, hospitals, schools, libraries and for burials. Take for consideration, this Alabama law: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the...

…city to more affluent suburban white schools, and white students were brought to minority schools. Busing was created as a means of safeguarding civil rights of all involved and to ensure that students of all ethnic backgrounds received a good education. Quotas refer to the numerical burdens placed on schools and school districts to embrace integration. Hence they had to have a certain number of black children and white children by law. Some school districts, such as ones in Boston received financial incentives to engage in this practice. Many scholars felt that busing was a failure, but more accurately, it just wasnt possible to sustain it, for several reasons. One reason was the white flight that happened around so many major cities, that there just werent enough white students to help make a complete integration movement (Cornish, 2016). The other thing that happens is busing placed a tremendous burden on black students and on students of color. In most cases, they were the ones that were asked to travel to the suburbs, travel sometimes to hostile neighborhoods. For many parents, that simply isn't worth it after a number of years (Cornish, 2016).

In conclusion, the desegregation movement was slow and difficult and continues in many ways to this very day. Desegregation had an enormous legacy of ugliness and injustice to undo and tried to find compelling and effective…