Abstract
Chapter 6 focuses on the coded language that defined the opposition to desegregation. Archival letters, memos, and speeches are used to illustrate the ways that opponents resisted school desegregation. Opponents argued that racism played no factor in their opposition to desegregation but that court-ordered desegregation violated states’ rights, parents’ freedom of choice, and that busing city students to the county was too expensive of a remedy. This chapter explores and challenges those arguments. Financial data are used to show that desegregation provided lucrative benefits to white, suburban schools and concludes that while letter-writing campaigns and political speeches that were commonly used to oppose school desegregation were nonviolent, they were racist. Ultimately, the forms of “dignified disdain” that St. Louisans exhibited are examined and found to be just as harmful as the types of violent opposition to school desegregation that occurred in other cities around the country.
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Notes
- 1.
Chapter 5 offers archival evidence in the form of letters written by parents, mostly mothers, who opposed school desegregation. Their letters do not include blatantly racist language, yet are filled with coded language that reveals racist ideologies.
- 2.
This analysis was gathered from several letters found in the Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center, Box 1, Folder 2. The letters were written to Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt (Dem.), who served in the US House of Representatives from 1977–2005.
- 3.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America, 4th ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
- 4.
See Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peace and Freedom, July/August 1989, 10, Alternative Press Index Archive, EBSCOhost, accessed October 13, 2015; see also Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists, 8–11.
- 5.
Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists, 2.
- 6.
A letter sent from Barbara Mueller to Congressman Gephardt, dated June 11, 1980, addresses these issues. Mueller states that she is speaking on behalf of dozens of people and gives her permission for Gephardt to share all or part of her letter. The letter includes her address, phone number, and 23 specific points to explain why desegregation is harmful to her children and the children of those for whom she speaks. Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center, Box 1, Folder 2.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Ironically, the Catholic Church has been a proponent of desegregation in St. Louis since Brown v. Board of Education. In St. Louis, Archbishop Ritter gave a direct order that Catholic schools would be desegregated. When 700 parents complained, the Archbishop threatened them with excommunication. Some parents withdrew their children from desegregated Catholic schools in the area, but within six months, the conflict appeared to dissipate. The Catholic Church took further steps when new desegregation policies were implemented in the 1980s. Any families that were attempting to flee desegregation by enrolling in Catholic schools were to be denied admissions. See “Desegregation Opposition” Science News-Letter 65, no. 22 (1954): 338, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3933501.
- 9.
Mueller to Gephardt, 1980.
- 10.
Missouri Attorney General John Ashcroft argued this point consistently during his appeals of Liddell v. Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, 1979.
- 11.
In this statement, I use the word integration purposefully to represent the way that parents who opposed desegregation discussed it. In documents found in the archives, these parents, mostly white, did not distinguish between desegregation and integration. While scholars of desegregation research understand the difference, many parents did not. The use of the word here reflects the language the parents used.
- 12.
Dionne Danns, “Racial Ideology and the Sanctity of the Neighborhood School in Chicago,” Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education 40, no. 1 (2008): 68, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-007-0078-2.
- 13.
Clayton-TAMM is the name of a predominately white neighborhood on the west side of St. Louis. It is named after intersecting streets of Clayton Avenue and Tamm Avenue.
- 14.
A letter written by Margaret E. Irvin, President of the Clayton-TAMM Community Association, to Congressman Richard Gephardt, February 3, 1977, expresses the idea that tax money is excessively spent yet wasted on blacks, who are given much and produce very little. See Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center, Box 1, Folder 2.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Thomson Reuters, “The Thomson Legal Record for John Ashcroft,” FindLaw, 2010, retrieved from http://news.findlaw.com/newsmakers/john.ashcroft.html. See also, Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation,” 217.
- 17.
Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation,” 217.
- 18.
Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle, 114.
- 19.
District Court Judge James Meredith believed that the St. Louis Public Schools contributed to segregation although they did not cause it. See Liddell v. Board of Education of St. Louis, 1972.
- 20.
Bradley W. Joondeph, “Skepticism and School Desegregation,” Washington University Law Review 76, no. 1 (1998): 164, http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol76/iss1/12.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation,” 220.
- 23.
Jessie Daniels, “White Families are Engines of Inequality,” HuffPost, February 27, 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-daniels-white-black-wealth-gap_us_5a947f91e4b02cb368c4bf48.
- 24.
Louis Menand, “Civil Actions: Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of the Law,” New Yorker, February 12, 2001, 91–94. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/02/12/civil-actions.
- 25.
Ibid., 93. See also J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, 1st Vintage Books ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1986).
- 26.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, “School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson,” ProPublica, December 19, 2014, http://www.propublica.org/article/ferguson-school-segregation.
- 27.
Archival data show that in 1983, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl used EPA grant money to create housing rehabilitation programs in Benton Park, Hyde Park, and O’Fallon Park neighborhoods. The first two communities were predominately white, while O’Fallon Park was a predominately black neighborhood. Although these regentrification programs were proposed, more research is necessary to find out how (and if) these programs were successfully implemented and how the money was distributed. Given that the bulk of city residents in the 1980s were black, the distribution of money could yield significant findings regarding who benefitted most from this federally funded housing program.
- 28.
The Taylor-Morley-Simon, Inc., press release, September 11, 1983, Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 3.
- 29.
See Dennis Coleman, “Mercantile Bank Memo,” November 6, 1984, the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder. See also “Letter to Mayor Schoemehl,” July 15, 1981, from a University of Southern California official (name not recorded), regarding a program in which federal grant money was being given for the improvement of city conditions, in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder.
- 30.
Taylor-Morley-Simon, Inc., press release, 1983.
- 31.
Ibid. It is unclear from the press release whether the $75,000 was offered as a grant or a loan. The fact that it was noted as “interest-free” suggests that it may have been a loan, since grant money bears no interest.
- 32.
Ibid. The exact partnership between Taylor-Morley-Simon and community members requires investigation. It is clear from the press release that community members used private money to partner with the development company, but it is also clear that the development produced rental units. More investigation is needed to determine if Taylor-Morley-Simon or the private donors became the owners of each of the six buildings that were rehabilitated.
- 33.
“A Housing Proposal for St. Louis,” September 6, 1983, the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder. This nine-page document outlines the construction of low and moderately priced housing for the city. The location for these houses is unknown. Further research is needed to discover whether or not the plans were intended to rehabilitate houses in city neighborhoods populated by blacks or whites. Much of the backlash Mayor Schoemehl received was that his proposals benefitted white St. Louisans disproportionately; however, more research is needed to prove this claim.
- 34.
Vincent Schoemehl, New Year’s Eve Message, 1985, the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder.
- 35.
Vincent Schoemehl, Graduation Speech to Class of 1981, the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder. This speech predates the Benton Park and Hyde Park renovation projects. Perhaps this is because the projects had been proposed but not completed.
- 36.
Dale Singer, interview with Hope Rias, June 4, 2014.
- 37.
Amy Stuart Wells, “Education; St. Louis Evaluates Its Pioneer Integration Plan,” New York Times, June 8, 1988, 3.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation,” 220.
- 40.
Ibid., 202.
- 41.
Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle, 80.
- 42.
Ibid.
- 43.
Wells, “Education; St. Louis Evaluates,” 3.
- 44.
Marie Marmo Mullaney, Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1988–1994 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), 217.
- 45.
See Richard Gephardt memo to Edward T. Foote, May 2, 1980, in the Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center, Box 1, Folder 2.
References
“A Housing Proposal for St. Louis.” September 6, 1983, the Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
Daniels, Jessie. “White Families Are Engines Of Inequality.” HuffPost, February 27, 2018. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-daniels-white-black-wealth-gap_us_5a947f91e4b02cb368c4bf48.
Danns, Dionne. “Racial Ideology and the Sanctity of the Neighborhood School in Chicago.” Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education 40, no. 1 (2008): 64–75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-007-0078-2.
“Desegregation Opposition.” Science News-Letter 65, no. 22 (1954): 338. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3933501.
Freivogel, William H. “St. Louis: Desegregation and School Choice in the Land of Dred Scott.” In Divided We Fail: Coming Together Through Public School Choice, edited by The Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School, 209–235. New York: Century Foundation Press, 2002. http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Educationfreivogel.pdf.
Hannah-Jones, Nikole. “School Segregation, the Continuing Tragedy of Ferguson.” ProPublica, December 19, 2014. http://www.propublica.org/article/ferguson-school-segregation.
Heaney, Gerald W., and Susan Uchitelle. Unending Struggle: The Long Road to an Equal Education in St. Louis. St. Louis, MO: Reedy Press, 2004.
Joondeph, Bradley W. “Skepticism and School Desegregation.” Washington University Law Review 76, no. 1 (1998): 164. http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol76/iss1/12.
Lukas, J. Anthony. Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families. 1st Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1986.
McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Peace and Freedom, July/August 1989. Accessed October 13, 2015. Alternative Press Index Archive. EBSCOhost.
Menand, Louis. “Civil Actions: Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of the Law.” New Yorker, February 12, 2001, 91–94. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/02/12/civil-actions.
Mullaney, Marie Marmo. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1988–1994. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Richard Gephardt memo to Edward T. Foote, May 2, 1980, in the Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center, Box 1, Folder 2.
Singer, Dale. Interview with Hope Rias. Personal Interview. St. Louis, June 4, 2014.
Thomson Reuters. “The Thomson Legal Record for John Ashcroft.” FindLaw, 2010. Retrieved from http://news.findlaw.com/newsmakers/john.ashcroft.html.
Vincent, Schoemehl. “New Year’s Eve Message, 1985.” The Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder.
———. “Graduation Speech to Class of 1981.” The Western Historical Manuscript Collection and University Archives, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Mayor Vincent Schoemehl Collection, First Term, 1981–1985, Box 55, Surveys and Questionnaires Folder.
Wells, Amy Stuart. “Education; St. Louis Evaluates Its Pioneer Integration Plan.” New York Times, June 8, 1988.
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Rias, H.C. (2019). Guardians of White Innocents and White Innocence. In: St. Louis School Desegregation. Historical Studies in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04248-6_6
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