Segregation academies. I suppose these were mainly a Southern phenomenon, but I’d be curious to know if others went to private schools that were founded mainly–though not officially–to maintain segregation outside of the Deep South. The only four that I’m personally familiar with were founded in 1965 and 1966 (two in each year), probably more in response to the Civil Rights act of 1964 than Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954. So, I’d also be curious to know if anyone knew of any that were founded between those years.
And, just in case you’re wondering, no, I did not attend one. But I know people who did. And some of my best friends did.
Ha! That was one of the four, though. Heathwood and Cardinal Newman are different animals.
And to reword something:
I suppose these were mainly a Southern phenomenon, but I’d be curious to know if others went to private schools that were founded mainly–though not officially–to maintain segregation that were also outside the Deep South.
There is still one in my town. It’s no longer “officially” segregated, of course, but still overwhelmingly white, in a town whose population is 54% African-American. For comparison purposes, here is the local Catholic school and a public school.
By the way, I don’t think any of them ever called themselves “segregation academies,” but if it was a non-parochial private school built in the 1960s, especially in the south, chances are it was one.
I went to one. Grew up in a decent-sized city in an otherwise rural area of Georgia, and went to a school that in 2002 had maybe four black people, of a population of about 200 (high school only). There were several other non-white, non-black students though (of which I was one). The town is at least 50% black. The school was founded in the 1960s. Tuition was not that expensive (about $6000/year back then, more now) but my town was very poor.
It was a very good school academically, esp. for the area. Tiny class sizes and a decent range of AP classes. Limited extracurriculars though, but we did have most of the major non-sports ones, and almost all of the sports ones. College was easy compared to high school (but I went to a party school for college). Very conformist student body, everyone kind of dressed the same and went to the same church and dance class and shopped at the same stores and the moms hung out together a lot, etc. Very conservative mindset, politically and socially. If you’ve read or seen The Help, the women had very similar mindsets to the mothers of the kids in my school, updated slightly. My mom was one of the few that worked. Most of them were southern “ladies who lunch” types with well-off husbands and usually some domestic help. Think low-rent versions of Trudy and Betty in Mad Men.
Lots of racism towards blacks. Nothing super, super overt (like cross burnings) but jokes and stuff. One of the most egregious examples is that I remember a football player (who was also class valedictorian and star of all the school plays and etc, etc) joking calling the one black football player (who I think was there on an athletic scholarship) “nigadoodle.”
I could go on and on with stories about how my school was so different (we had a school-sponsored beauty pageant; our principal, at a post-Columbine school assembly, bemoaned the fact that we now had to drop our rifles off at home in the morning before coming to school, etc) but suffice it to say it was like taking a step back in time.
My school looks A LOT like the one in Fretful Porcupine’s link.
I just looked it up and it’s now $11,500/yr for high school, if you pay in a lump sum. And the population of the school was closer to 250 for the high school in my day.
In one local private school, the first graduating class was one person!
In the county where I graduated, the population has for many years been about 60/40 Black/White. But, in the 1968 graduating class, there were about 120 students, and nine blacks. My classes, until 1970, were about 80% White. Then, with the busing and integration changes, it went more toward 2:1 Black to White. Today that same high school has about 900 students with a 9:1 Black to White ratio. The competing private school (founded 1966) has about 300 students total (1-12), not a single Black.
Hmm, until 8th grade I went to a private, non-religious school in Virginia that was founded in 1959. But it had black students when I was there. (and, starting in 1979, quite a few Iranians).
Well, the public school I went to in Jersey in the mid-sixties had no black students… because the town had no black residents. Does that count?
Until the '64 civil rights act, the town was officially restricted. Blacks (and Jews) were unable to purchase properties. Mind you, I was too young to understand this at the time, so I am passing on second-hand information (from my late grandmother, a real-estate agent). It may well have been that the restriction was not a legal one, but was informally enforced by people like my grandmother steering “those” customers to properties in neighboring towns.
I went to one in Florence, SC for two years but ended up transferring to a local public high school my senior year where I received a much better education, IMHO. No black kids attended the school in the mid 80’s when I was there (although a couple of kids from India). Mater mentioned to me the other day that they closed last year (or combined with a local parochial school) due to lack of enrollment and financial problems. Frankly, it was for the best.
My small hometown has a small private school that opened around 1970. I only came to realize this recently, but this must be the reason it opened. My mother started public high school in 1968, and all the faces in her yearbook are white. The 1970 yearbook looks a lot different. My Aunt was the first valedictorian, and my grandfather (her father) was the architect of the private school. My mother refused to go there, and went to the public school. When I was very young she claimed that her father offered to pay her to go there and she would not. That seemed pretty weird to me. Some years later she told me about a white child refused admission because she “looked black.” People have said that about me and at least one of my uncles, too. Plus a lot of people in my family ARE black now.
It’s always dicey to put words into someone’s mouth, but I would bet if you spoke to any of the founders of the local private school in my hometown about its creation, they would probably say something to the effect of “We thought we could provide a better education with a private school.” I looked at the basketball schedule of the one from my hometown. All of the non-parochial schools on their schedule were founded between 1964 and 1972. I think it’s one of those open secrets. Everyone knows it, but no one wants to talk about it.
Dallas public schools were completely segregated until 71, I graduated in 72. Dallas’ solution wasn’t to build segregation academies but entire segregation cities. All my white brothers who could afford it moved twenty miles out of town, or to the famous park cities where driving while black is still a serious offense.
I’m not trying to stir up shit, mostly just a response to the “of course I didn’t go to one” thing but I don’t think there would be any shame in being forced to go to one. And I don’t think even high school students have much choice in the matter, especially back in the 60s.
I’m reminded of the criticism of the former pope being in the Hitler youth, its not like he had a choice either way.
I did. Two, technically, both in the Jackson, MS area.
One when I was a little kid - K to 5thgrade. Then we moved away and I came back in HS, where I went to a different one for about a year, until I purposefully got myself expelled to piss off my family (yeah, I was that kid.) It was an academically good school. It was a terrible fit for me. (A metal and punk loving kid who spent a lot of time in California in the early to mid-80s got plonked down into an alternate reality, bascially.)
I graduated from a public HS in inner city Jackson, MS. There were five white kids in my graduating class.
There were zero black or other ethnicity - well…lies, there was one Asian kid - in the two schools I went to.
We called them Council schools, for what it’s worth. I can’t remember from when I was little - that would have been 73-78 - if there was much in the way of segregation issues that we kids were aware of. If so, it would have been then, I think, as it was still going on at the time. When I was in HS it was not a thing that was mentioned - indeed, by then the school’s history had been whitewashed (heh) to avoid mention of it having been a Council school, although it was still referred to as one in the wider community.
Lots of them are closed now. The one I went to as a child is, although I know people who graduated from there.
ETA: My HS was founded prior to 64, the other one in 68.
Personal quirk from a precocious child anglophile who read waaaay too much Brit-lit as a child. Also used interchangeably with “moms” to avoid the southern “momma”. Interestingly enough…never used “pater”.