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

Sixty years have passed since the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in public education in a landmark decision that changed America forever. Before then, blacks, especially in the South, were barred from attending school with whites and subjected to a second-class educational system, which scarred many of them for life. 

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

 In 1970, when school desegregation finally materialized in the State following years of stagnation, whites, particularly in Southwest Georgia,  where African Americans make up the majority in numerous counties,  built private institutions, which came to be known as segregation academies, 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 predominantly black student bodies.  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 United States.  Due to white flight and de facto segregation, most public schools in Savannah,  Macon,  Columbus,  Atlanta,  and Clayton County are overwhelmingly African American.  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, schools enroll students from diverse backgrounds with above-average test scores.  The same can be said for several nearby counties in the State's Southeastern corner and districts in far northern Georgia, like Floyd and Bartow.

Racially integrated school systems benefit students and communities in various ways.  For instance,  towns and counties fare better economically compared to others. For example, the economies of Bulloch and Emanuel Counties are stronger than those of Randolph and Terrell, which lag behind in diversity. Additionally,  CRCT scores, SAT test scores, and college admission rates are much higher in the former than in the latter.

It has 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 is a renewed effort to reform America's school districts, we will continue to advance into a society of haves and have-nots, with public educational institutions competing against private ones.