Also known as: Jesus Christ what fucking year is this?
Two questions occur to me right away…
How did they think they would get away with this in this day and age?
How can they think that resegregation is right?
Fucking Mississippi. A third world country in the middle of America. I’ve got half my kin in rural Louisiana and they ain’t stupid enough to try this (and some of them can by mighty stupid, trust me.).
Very sadly, this sort of thing is actually not that uncommon, even in the modern South. (Excuse me: “Sunbelt”.)
I grew up in rural east Tennessee, and the neighboring county where I went to school was all-white. Literally. No black families at all, even in the early 90’s. They had been run out decades before. My high-school was all-white. I remember hearing racist jokes (including the N word) told by my principal, and students would bring KKK literature and pass it out at school. The people were horribly, disfiguredly, rabidly racist.
Fucking disgusting.
The irony–lost on the mouth-breathing, cousin-fucking populace of that county–was that pretty much all of eastern TN, being poorly suited for plantation agriculture, had always been pretty much slave-free and strongly pro-Union, during the Civil War. It wasn’t 'til the Reconstruction era that the racist/Confederate stuff crept into the region.
Don’t you mean Jesus Fucking Christ?
Desegregation has been a very tough row to hoe in a lot of places, not just the historical laughingstocks. Some places refuse to desegregate until ordered to do so (and given orders how to do so), and most places, once the federal orders are lifted, allow or encourage (depending on your point of view) the de facto state of segregation to return almost immediately anyway. If there isn’t a federal court breathing down the school districts’ necks, the shit doesn’t happen, has been the trend in many places.
And then some places try to do more to integrate and get smacked down by the Supreme Court for being too race-conscious in the other direction. It seems to be the case that we’ve reached the point where we are fully pretending that racism is no longer an issue in this country – and that’s part of the answer to questions 1 and 2, in my opinion. If we allow that we turned some corner in the distant past – if systemic racism is a thing that used to be a problem – then suddenly why shouldn’t we allow students to transfer wherever they want? In this day and age, why shouldn’t we get past looking at race? Shouldn’t we be color-blind? Wasn’t that the whole point? Etc.
They thought they could get away it because, well, they have been getting away with it.
Can I get a witness?
Nothing makes us feel better than a little recreational outrage, huh?
Gee, you were surprised that an egalitarian state such as Mississippi would maintain such an anachronistic mentality?
Why just last month, a school district got bent out of shape because their prom would be attended by lesbians!!
Darn, I forget … in what state was that school district located? 
But, see, that was on the far Northeast end of the state. This current pit thread is about a county in the Southwest end of the state.
It’s not like this encompasses the entire state! Besides, this is just more evidence of the FEDS interfering with the STATES! To the barricades!
-Joe, waiting to hear about the other 2 corners
Merijeek
Well thank you for clearing that up and my sincerest apologies for thinking that all citizens of Mississippi possessed an antiquated mentality.
I’m not going to defend the state. A whole lot of the people here really do suck THAT bad. But if you “[think] that all citizens of Mississippi possessed an antiquated mentality,” You are wrong. I am a citizen of this less-than-great state, and I am progressive and forward thinking. Constance McMillen and her supportive family are citizens of Mississippi. At least some of the people who are fighting against the injustice in this case are citizens of Mississippi. Racism and bigotry are wrong, no matter where you live. They are everywhere, and while I will never say the South isn’t a more racist part of the country, we do not have the sole claim on racism. Much of the North doesn’t have anyone to be racist against; they ran the minorities out decades ago, and have maintained all white enclaves ever since. Or are you going to tell me there aren’t all white school districts, in, say, Iowa?
Instead of bashing every citizen of the state, let me say that I think this is fucked up, and I’m glad it is beginning to be mended. I hope the newly integrated minorities don’t come to any harm, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, I’m afraid. Good for them, though, for trying to stand up to injustice. Only by staying here and fighting can anything ever change.
I believe Iowa is something like 98% white. Can you please cite the migration of African Americans that suggests they were “run out”?
miss elizabeth
Yes, that reply I made was somewhat strongly worded and it certainly did seem I was condemning the entire state of Mississippi. Sorry.
See? Despite its name, The Pit can still be a place for polite discussion of today’s topics. 
This. Great Northern Migration, folks. Blacks from the South, along with whites from Appalachia, generally migrated to industrial cities, not agricultural states or farm-market centers. Blacks weren’t looking for 40 acres and a mule in Nebraska or North Dakota, but rather 40 hours a week in the factories of Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.
I don’t think miss elizabeth was claiming that minorities were “run out” of the North as a whole, but rather that they were run out or kept out of parts of the various states and cities in the North by segregation laws specifically to preserve “white enclaves”. Once you don’t have any minorities in your school district, then voila! Nobody to discriminate against, nothing to feel guilty about!
I assume you don’t need a cite for the historical existence of segregation laws in Iowa.
Mississippi is an easy target for RO of the racial type. Not that there isn’t room for improvement, but remember that other school districts all over the country have been involved in federal court cases involving desegregation. Boston and Chicago are two that come to mind first.
Mississippi (and the south in general) sometimes gets a worse rap than other areas because their segregation laws (pre Civil Rights Act) were much less subtle. I grew up in the midwest. MLK spoke in 1964 at the college that two of my sisters graduated from. He had to be lodged in the next town over because of a sundown ordinance. Sundown town - Wikipedia
Those weren’t uncommon in northern towns and cities. Even after the Civil Rights Act, much of the time, there was a tacit agreement among realtors that blacks were not shown property in certain areas of town. That had the effect of making defacto segregation by geography. It’s hard to enforce school integration when there are less than .5% minorities in your whole county.
Yes, it’s really sad that desegregation cases are still going on in this century, but let’s not kid ourselves, it happens outside of the south too.
No, not this.
That suggests that they were never there in Iowa, not that they were “run out!”
I think it all makes us feel good to decry segregation and, without thinking, assume that desegregation was a universal good, and all those parents who desired their kids be in the best possible school and get the best possible education are/were all virulent racists.
Neither is true.
Ok, lets look at that.
Is there any compelling evidence that suggests that Iowa made a potential life for AAs so unwelcoming that they weren’t “run out”, but rather, “kept out”?
No.
In fact, didn’t almost every single locale that AA migrated into have laws that were every bit as pernicious as the one you cited?
Whites and blacks alike migrated to industrial states for jobs.
The reporter probably enjoyed writing that line.
I guess they don’t want to be known as the cafe-o-lait pitcher.
One person making precisely that argument is James Loewen, author of sundown Towns, who has a webpage on such activities for each state. Here’s his Iowa page:
Thank you to everyone who replied about Sundown Towns. I thought that was a well known phenomenon; I guess not.
There is plenty of evidence that blacks were deliberately kept out of white enclaves in the north. There is, and always has been, plenty of racism to go around in this country, unfortunately. Like I said, I am not defending Mississippi. I think it is fair to say that most of the people here have some pretty disgusting views. But, again, it isn’t everyone. And only by strong people staying here, and working to change attitudes, will things ever change. I do not blame anyone who decided that enough was enough, and left the state, of course. But its hard for the people who live here, and try to be a face for a different kind of South, to hear that everyone from Mississippi (or Alabama, or Arkansas, or Tennessee…) is a stupid racist redneck.
Again, though, this action is fucked up. I am not totally surprised to see it, but even still, its shocking. I sincerely hope things are improved, and without violence. I hope these kids learn to befriend one another, and bring new racial reconciliation to their area.