Brown v. Board of Education: A Snapshot Of School Desegregation in Georgia

It has been sixty years since the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public education in the United States in a landmark decision that changed America forever. 

However, in Georgia,  many schools remain segregated not by law but by custom,  especially in counties where blacks outnumber whites.

 In 1970 when school integration finally became official or took route in the State, whites,  particularly in Southwest Georgia,  where African Americans make up the majority in numerous counties,  built academies or private institutions to bypass the new law.  It occurred in Terrell County,  Randolph County,  Dougherty County, and Baker County, as well as in scores of other school districts with black majorities.  As a result, a lack of economic and racial diversity exists in student enrollment, which impacts the quality of education received in schools.

Segregated school districts also exist in urban areas of Georgia years after court-ordered desegregation in the U.S.  Due to white flight and de facto segregation, most public schools in Savannah,  Macon,  Columbus,  Atlanta,  and Clayton County are overwhelmingly African American.  And in Cobb County, a sprawling diverse suburb north of Atlanta,  officials have been accused of gerrymandering or skewing school district lines to create white-majority institutions in high-income areas.

On the other hand,  in communities where whites constitute the majority,  school desegregation has mostly succeeded.   For instance,  in Bulloch County,  where the population is roughly 60% white and 40% black,  the schools are comprised of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds with above-average test scores.  The same can be said for several nearby counties in the Southeastern corner of the State and districts in far North Georgia, like Floyd and Bartow.

Racially integrated school systems benefit students and communities in a variety of ways.  For instance,  towns and counties with ethnically diverse public schools tend to be much better off economically than those that don't.  For example,  the economies of Bulloch and Emanuel County are much better than Randolph and Terrell,  which lag behind in diversity.  In addition,  CRCT and SAT test scores and college admission rates are much higher in the former than in the latter.

It's been predicted that public education will be the overriding social issue of the twenty-first century in America despite bold efforts to eradicate disparities in  U.S. schools in the 1950s and '60s.  Unless there's a renewed effort to reform America's school districts shortly,  we will continue to advance into a society of haves and have-nots or public educational institutions versus private ones.