Town Hall Meeting on Race Relations
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, NC
Part Two
Episode #1415

Holloway:	Host, Jay Holloway
Collins:	Dwayne Collins, President, NAACP of Charlotte
Ferguson:	James Ferguson, Esq.
James:	Bill James, County Commissioner
M:	Male voice
F:	Female voice

Holloway:
Busing, integration, desegregation, separate but equal, neighborhood schools. It sounds like issues from the sixties or seventies but it is happening right now in 1999. We will talk about a landmark decision that not only will effect Charlotte but the potential for the state and the nation, next on Black Issues Forum [FADE IN MUSIC]

Good evening and welcome to another edition of Black Issues Forum. I'm Jay Holloway, your host. This week we are talking in Part 2 in a town hall meeting on race relations on the campus of UNC-Charlotte, in Charlotte, North Carolina. This week we are talking about the issue of school desegregation, integration, busing, race based pupil assignment, whatever you want to call it. We are sure you are going through that in your town but Charlotte went through this in the Swan decision back in the seventies and they are revisiting it now with another reverse discrimination case. We're going to talk about that and we have a distinguished panel here and I'd like to thank your studio audience for returning again this week for this program.

First let me introduce to you Dwayne Collins. He is President of the Charlotte NAACP and, Dwayne, thanks for being with us.

Collins:
Thanks for having me.

Holloway:
Also, James Ferguson, the second attorney partner with the Ferguson, Stein, Wallace, Atkins, Gresham, Sumter Law Firm of Charlotte. Thank you for being with us.

Ferguson:
Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here.

Holloway:
Last but not least Bill James, County Commissioner and also affiliated with CFNSS, Citizens For Neighborhood School Systems.

James:
Thanks very much, thanks for having me.

Holloway:
Thank you all for being here. Now, I'd like for you two gentlemen to help explain to our state-wide audience why this issue is so important, not only to Charlotte but potential for the rest of our state, as it relates to your school system. What are you going through here and why is it so important.

Ferguson:
Well, it is important because Charlotte has, the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system, as a matter of fact, has said that it wants to be the premiere urban integrated school system in the nation. Since 1971 when the Supreme Court issues an order saying that the same tools that were used to bring about and to maintain segregation had to be used for desegregation. Then Charlotte has moved on a continuum towards removing some of the vestiges of that dual school system. But Charlotte has not yet become what we call a unitary system. There are still numerous inequities in that system. The School Board has not followed fully the orders that were entered in the earlier Swan case, so we're not there yet. But in the meantime, last fall, some white, a white parent who wanted his child to get into a particular magnet school was unable to get that child into school because there were slots for whites and blacks, in order to maintain a desegregated school. That white parent filed a lawsuit and that lawsuit has mushroomed into a case where the entire basis of the Swan decision is being challenged. And when that attack was made the original Swan plaintiffs filed a motion in the case saying that it was an attack on Swan and in an effort to maintain the progress that had been made up until this point, we entered into that lawsuit, asking the court to consider it along with the Swan case. If that suit is successful it would mean that the progress that has been made over the last almost 30 years in the Swan case would be turned around and we would soon have a resegregated school system in my view.

Holloway:
Bill, is your organization shooting for that, to go back to resegregated, segregated schools system. What is this all about. You are affiliated with the same gentlemen, right?

James:
I'm not on the board of the CFNSS because I'm an elected official but I think I've been involved in the neighborhood schools movement long enough, I guess, to summarize what I think are part of the salient points. When Mecklenburg County and the school board was involved in the Swan decision the government in Charlotte was involved in institutionalized and institutional sponsored racism. They had a separate and unequal set of facilities, government sponsored. We got, the government said some facilities will be bad and they will be for blacks and some facilities will be good and they will be for whites. And the courts rightfully recognized that separate and unequal, you can't have separate and equal in a two-tiered school system where blacks only are allowed to go to one school and whites are only allowed to go to the others. What is happening now is that in 1969-71 Charlotte was around 35% black. Now it is around 27% black. The white population has now expanded out to fill up almost the entire county, which means that if you are like me, and I live 13 miles from Trade and Tryon, south of the Arboretum area, near Mathews, if a child wants to go to school, to a new high school that is going to be built at Dacians Ford Road, that child is going to have to get up very early in the morning and ride down a major interstate, ride up another interstate on a school bus, get off in the middle of no man's land in order to attend a school where the only purpose for placing the school there is to insure that there are x % of blacks and x% of whites. The court case, I think, could have been avoided, but I think the train has left the station and I think it is going to be up to the courts to decide this. If you were to ask the average person, suburbanite, and I'm going to try to speak for, I think I represent, since I represent a district that is relatively suburban, if you were to ask them what do they want for their children it is the same thing that anyone would want, they want their children to be able to get a good education, they want the adequate resources, textbooks, and supplies. And they want their kids to go to a school close to home. If you read polls that is no difference than what anyone wants, black, white or whatever. So I think the problem is that when you get involved in a court case, as Mr. Ferguson and others are involved in, because there is this distrust that neighborhood schools will result in racism I think that there is a fear that to unwind what worked in 1969 somehow or other means that we are going to be going back to the bad old days. I have no intention of doing that and that is one of the reasons I supported the $415 million bond package to build inner city schools and to renovate them and that is why I'll support, most likely, depending on what the package is, in the future. We have to solve the problem of equitable education. But you don't solve it by putting a kid on a bus.

Ferguson:
I have to say this. This case is not about busing. The fact of the matter is busing has been a part of the school system in North Carolina ever since I was a child. And people were bused 80 miles a day in order to maintain segregation. Now, the fact of the matter is that right now today, in Charlotte/Mecklenburg, 96% of elementary school students who are transported to school have a bus ride of 30 minutes or less. High school students may have somewhat of a longer ride. Overall 89% of all students in Charlotte/Mecklenburg who ride a bus to school have 30 minutes or less to ride on the bus. So, there is not this situation that some would say where children are getting on the bus in the early hours of the morning and they are riding an hour and two hours and three hours to school. That doesn't happen. Of those who have a bus ride longer than 30 minutes, many of them have that bus ride because they have chosen to go to a magnet school some distance from their home. So, many of the white citizens of our county who are saying they want a neighborhood school are willing to put their child on a bus to ride more than 30 minutes to get to a magnet school. So, what they really want is the best possible school close to their home. Now, the reality is, I have to say this, the reality is that you cannot go to a neighborhood school system and have neighborhood schools in the black community in Charlotte today. Because there are no schools in the black community for our students to go to.

Holloway:
And that is probably typical around our state, in other communities. Dwayne, let me get you into the discussion here. The NAACP represents a quite diverse large group of blacks. And one thing that I guess that most of you would probably agree with is that we can't have these neighborhood schools until we resolve this equity issue. But to you feel that the majority of blacks in this county have the same desires that your colleague just said earlier, that the whites in the suburbs have in terms of wanting a quality school in their neighborhood, or is this whole issue still of separate but equal still relevant.

Collins:
I think that paramount in most black people's minds, I don't speak on behalf of the entire population of black people in Charlotte but from what I ascertain is the idea of separate but unequal. And if we embrace the idea that Mr. James is reporting, going to neighborhood schools, which by the way I think in its current context, I think most black people here in Charlotte, when they see somebody advocating neighborhood schools they see somebody advocating segregation once again, back as it was in the 1960's, up until the seventies here in Charlotte. And I think that is the dilemma or the threat that pervades most people's minds, that of African extraction here in the city of Charlotte, that if neighborhood schools are put in place there will not only will not black and white and other parts of the human family be together under one roof to create a true atmosphere of respect for one another's culture, language, etc, so forth and the significant thing that each and every part of the human family brings to the table, but also the tangible, equitable distribution of resources is concerned. That would be pervasive within the suburban school systems here in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg school system, not pervasive in the inner city. So, I think you have a two-pronged attack as far as that is concerned.

Holloway:
Let me encourage our audience to get involved and just as I say that a gentleman has come to the microphone because we have an audience here. And, sir, go right ahead here with your comment or question.

M:
Yes, I'm a native Charlottean myself and I am child who was bused during the seventies and I grew up in Charlotte and have attended Charlotte Mecklenburg schools. I think the idea of neighborhood schools, I think it rises to a larger ideology. When you grow up and you live in this country, when you work in this country, you are not going to be able to choose where you work, who you work for. Certain things have to happen and I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that when you divide people, when I say people I'm talking about blacks and whites of course, but when you divide them, one begins to think one way and grow up another way. And then when you meet each other you don't understand my background, I don't understand yours. There you have the problem that we're dealing with as a whole which is a racial problem. And I think it starts in educating our children.

Holloway:
So, you have a specific question on that, it is a good point.

M:
It is just a comment that I wanted to make and I think that is the idea behind the neighborhood schools.

Holloway:
So, let me make that in a broader question. Do you think that people still value diversity in terms of wanting to do something about it because that is the terminology of the nineties, I guess, valuing diversity. And then if you go to this neighborhood schools it takes it back to the seventies situation. I mean, do we value diversity?

Ferguson:
Well, that question was answered, to some extent, by the committee of 33 that was a diverse group...

Holloway:
Who is that?

Ferguson:
It was a group that was called together by the school board to seek some solutions to some of the issues that we are talking about tonight. And they did some surveys and some focus groups and they found that a large number of citizens in Mecklenburg, the majority of citizens of Charlotte Mecklenburg want diversity. So, if you put the question, do we want diversity in our community? People will answer, yes. But, the question then becomes how do you have diversity and have neighborhood schools. And those who want neighborhood schools, in my view, are those who are looking only at what they want for themselves and their children. They are not looking what is best for this community. Business will tell you that diversity is important to business because it has to do with the kind of global economy we live in. Anyone who is thinking about the world that we live in has to recognize that we live in a world that is diverse and that if we are going to learn how to live together then we've got to learn how to play together and how to go to school together. And you can't do that and have neighborhood schools.

James:
Yes, but you did not answer one question, one question that was asked in a Charlotte Mecklenburg Ed Foundation poll was if you had to choose between diversity and neighborhood schools what would you pick. And the answer to that was "if I've got a choice between a short bus ride and a neighborhood school or having a diverse environment I want my kid going to the school close to home." A lot of whites answered that question yes, about 68%. But 1/3rd of blacks answered it yes. Which means that there is no, as in most cases, there is no monolithic viewpoint that says "all blacks think this way" or "all whites think this way." There are a lot of individuals that are whites that think that busing is the way to go and that diversity is the solution. And there are a majority that would completely disagree with that. But you cannot change the fact that some people do think that race based assignments, that is saying that this kid is white and is going to go here because he is white, and this kid is going to be going here because he is black, is something that is ingrained in a lot of people in Mecklenburg County as result of the Swan decision. But there are an awful lot of people that live here, I moved here in 1987 and a lot of people that are in my district moved here recently and our point is that we weren't here, we didn't fight against, for racism, we didn't fight against it, we weren't here in the south back in Charlotte Mecklenburg, we weren't here in the sixties, this isn't our battle. Our battle is we want our kids to go to a school close to home. And we're willing to raise our hands and to put our tax dollars on the table to make sure that all schools are equitable. Not equal, because some schools in the inner city, as was pointed out, need to be built in the inner city because they haven't been built. Now, I contend that one of the reasons why inner city schools haven't been built is because they had built schools in the inner city where a lot of black live, blacks would have wanted to go those inner city schools. And if you want to encourage busing and you know that blacks are the people that bear the brunt of most busing these days, which is a statistical fact, the best way to get blacks to be bused is to make sure there aren't any schools in their neck of the woods.

Holloway:
Well, that is my point, I know that is another point about neighborhood schools where, you know, but we have another comment or question and you've raised some good points here.

F:
Yes, my name is Mattie Marshall and what I want to address is the use of the word neighborhood schools. And when certain people use the word neighborhood it is very frightening to me. And it terrifies me, in fact. Yes, we have neighborhoods and we live together, but what some people are talking about is totally segregated schools and I don't think anyone in America today is looking to go back to that particular system, ever again. And I think our focus should be on educating all children in America and making America a number country in the world and the only way that we are going to do that is that we commit and sit down with each other and work out these differences and stop playing with words of neighborhood schools because you are not using it in the right context. That is just my comment.

Holloway:
That's right to the root of what we are talking about. Collins If I could add to what was said as far as the neighborhood schools, I think in this particular case or situation we also see the blatant hypocrisy of America, not only here in Charlotte but throughout America period. That articulates one thing in the Constitution that says this is freedom and justice for all people, but however their actions are in light years from what they put on pieces of paper. And we all are talking about the melting pot dynamic here in America and how great diversity is. And even Mr. James has said himself however, that is good with rhetoric but his actions are totally different. He is an advocate for neighborhood schools for children going to school in the area. If you really want your children to evolve to their fullest potential as human beings they can't be isolated to people that just look like them, people that just talk like them, people that are the same and so forth. If they are going to truly evolve to true human beings and world-class citizens in a so-called world-class city, they have to meet the world. And the world is just not seen through a European lens, it is seen through a black lens or red lens or yellow lens and a brown lens. And all those individuals have to be under one roof in order to appreciate what everybody, the significant things that every part of the human family brings to the table.

Holloway:
Let's go to the microphone first and then we'll come back to that. Yes, sir, go right ahead.

M:
My name is Clarence Ellis and I just wanted to add some type of perspective as a parent of 12 year old and a 13 year old of how important their education is to me and how much I think it is up to me to help educate them, because I think our school system in general, our educational system has failed most of our students in terms of providing educational materials that help them become better adults and more productive citizens in our society. I think the courts should focus more instead of how to put students in the same classroom as how to decide and build a program of materials that would help educate black and white students as how to live as more effective citizens when they become adults, as opposed to mixing people based on race. I think that is an unfortunate reality of how the courts have decided to resolve the problems that we have inherited over the generations in this country. But a much more serious approach to resolving the problem perhaps would be on focusing on building an educational program that enlightened students about their history, both blacks and whites about their history, as opposed to just putting things in a European perspective and throwing it down their throats and letting them be turned off by it. And I just would hope that those that who are interested in trying to build a better educational system will focus some on helping make this system better for all students and not just based on how to mix students race-wise.

Holloway:
So, we are talking about content here. We have just five minutes, in addition to this whole, are we failing our students by focusing so much on this integration and sitting beside someone else and failing them on the content.

Ferguson:
Well, first of all I think we need to be clear that by trying to bring about desegregated schools and maintain desegregated schools or diverse schools does not mean that you are sacrificing anything. There is nothing that says that if you do that you have to have bad schools. You can do that and have good schools too. But what you've got to have is good schools for everyone, and we have not had that, we don't have that now and to focus on going back to neighborhood schools, we are not going to have it in the future. Right now, the greatest resources, the most trained and well credentialed teachers are in the schools that are not predominantly African American schools. And if you go to African American schools you get just the opposite, you don't have the resources, you don't have the facilities, you don't have the books, you don't have the laboratories, you don't have the computers. And what this movement would mean is relegating a huge number of African American students to that kind of education, which means you will never have the kind of competition in a diverse society that we must have if we are going to live equally as a nation.

Holloway:
Let's go again to microphone one. Sir, go ahead with your comment or question quickly please.

M:
My name is Josse Filoke, I've just completed a book called The Crisis and Challenge of Black Miseducation in America. Among other things I have found that Dr. Kenneth Clark, who provided the initial sociological foundation for the Supreme Court decision in 1954 has basically changed his mind about school desegregation. And what he said in essence was that we, those of us who promoted racial desegregation in schools, we underestimated the depth and scope of white racism. And the bottom line is that racial desegregation as it is presently implemented is a disaster for black students and we need some radical changes. So, we ought not get caught up in the false dichotomy of so-called integration, which is really desegregation, and going back to segregation. Segregation is state mandated, it is illegal, no one in his right mind is ready to go back to that. But there is a third way which I would call a modified neighborhood school system and there are some other alternatives that could be considered. We have to consider some other alternatives to the present system, because the present system is disastrous and half the time, I can just run it down for you, statistics, realities, testimonies, everything that you want, but we've got to end this disaster that we now call racial desegregation in the public schools.

Holloway:
Thank you for bringing that up and I was going to address that because a couple of years ago the NAACP at their national meeting here in Charlotte and I think they made that a national point, that they now look back and say that maybe the desegregation of the sixties was a failure. Let's get this last question and then we'll have you make your final comments. Microphone two, this will be the last comment from the audience, quickly please, sir.

M:
A very quick point, one is that we as a people must not be afraid to do for ourselves. Education is something that we have always in the past provided for ourselves through other types of dynamics in our neighborhoods, organizations, it is not too late to still do that when necessary. The second point is, I think it is hypocritical to try to talk about doing these things as we've spoken about it, without having a moral fiber or a moral backbone. We've left God out of the equation and without God you can't do anything. And I think as long as you have white supremacy and black inferiority as the two dynamics that wrestle against one another you really can't deal with justice. You've got to have God in place or else you can't make the decisions that are pertinent and necessary for our children.

Holloway:
Thank you for your comments. We just have a few minutes. Dwayne, please go right ahead.

Collins:
I'll just add to what you were saying, I agree with Dr. Josse Folike said as far as the definition of segregation as opposed to integration. We've never had true integration since we've been over here, over 400 years, as black people in America. All we've had is segregation, meaning, pardon me, desegregation where blacks and whites are sitting together. But integration suggests that not only do we sit together but the resources that all need for all's freedom, all's justice, all equalities, those tangible resources, would be brought into existence and evenly shared as well, and till we get to that, that is what we need.

Ferguson:
The fact that desegregation has not solved all the problems of the schools does not mean that it has been a dismal or disastrous occasion. Of course it has not worked as it should, and those of us who believe in it have to continue to push for it to make it work as it should, to be sure that all of our children will get an education that is equal to the education that any other child gets. And the way to do that is to educate our children together. Holloway; Bill, quickly.

James:
I feel pretty comfortable that the neighborhood school plaintiffs are going to win the courtcase. I feel pretty comfortable that it is going to be a landmark decision and I think it will be good for Christina Cappicione, the young girl who has an Hispanic mother, who was denied admission, who would have gotten in if she'd been black, but was denied admission solely because Hispanics didn't count in the school board's equation.

Holloway:
And we didn't even talk about that tonight here. And we can't resolve these issues in a 30 minute program. We've been hard pressed to resolve the issue of race in the last 200 years and even the last 30 years in school desegregation, integration. Hopefully tonight you've had an opportunity, rather, to think about these in a different element. Think about how you value diversity, how you value neighborhood schools. What was the success and failure of the old desegregation integration plan. We want you to at least engage yourself, talk to others about it and do something about it and look at this case in Charlotte. It will have an impact one way or the other in your community or North Carolina.

I'm Jay Holloway, thank you so much for watching. Next week we'll have another town hall meeting and we invite you to join us again. Please visit our website for more information, give us a call with your comments and until next week you have a blessed evening and a good night.