tagged w/ segregation
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In American History, The Great Migration is the period from World War 1 to the 1970’s when African-Americans moved to the industrializing North to escape prejudice and find work. Nowadays, many African –Americans who are young and college educated are heading back to the American South to live. Cities like Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas are all prime destinations for this group of people who see more opportunities in the south for work and to enjoy a quality of life that was not afforded in the East and the Midwest at this point in time. A demographer said, “The percentage of blacks leaving big cities in the East and in the Midwest and heading to the South is now at the highest levels in decades.”In American History, The Great Migration is the period from World War 1 to the... more
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CNN...
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Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 9:40 PM EST, Tue February 7, 2012
Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72.
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Due played a leading role in student sit-ins more than half a century ago
She and other activists were arrested at a Woolworth lunch counter
The activists spent 49 days in jail rather than pay fines
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(CNN) -- Civil rights leader Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72, nearly 52 years after she played a leading role in student sit-ins in Tallahassee, Florida, her family said.
Due's death followed "a determined and courageous fight against cancer," her family said.
In 1960, as a 20-year-old college student and founding member of the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, Due, her sister, Priscilla, and three other Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University students were arrested for sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter.
Their decision to spend 49 days in jail rather than pay fines marked one of the first "jail-ins" during the civil rights movement, according to Johnita Due, one of the civil rights leader's three daughters and a lawyer for CNN.
During her time in jail, Due received a telegram of encouragement from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Going to jail for a righteous cause is a badge of honor and a symbol of dignity," it said. " I assure you that your valiant witness is one of the glowing epics of our time and you are bringing all of America (to) the threshold of the world's bright tomorrows."
Jackie Robinson, who broke major league baseball's racial barrier, sent Due a diary so that she could record her experiences while in jail, the family said.
Due's involvement with civil rights, which included leading rallies and marches throughout Tallahassee and elsewhere, came with a price, her family said. She was arrested for protesting in Florida and New York and the FBI had built up a 400-page file on her because of her activities, according to the family.
During one incident in 1960, Due was injured by a tear gas bomb used by police. The incident left her sensitive to light, requiring that she wear dark glasses throughout her life.
Her activism also jeopardized her college education at FAMU. Due's parents feared for her safety and wanted her to focus on her college education, according to Johnita Due.
Due tried to balance school and her protests against segregation, but according to the family, FAMU administrators were ultimately pressured by Florida officials to suspend Due.
Due was allowed to re-enroll and earned her degree in 1965. "I was determined that nothing was going to stop me from getting my degree," Due later said.
In 2006, FAMU gave Due an honorary doctorate in human letters and formally acknowledged the five decades she spent as a social activist. In response, Due said then, "At our ages when entering college, we were still children and FAMU was our surrogate parent, and time after time, we were punished for our 'behavior,' and now, they are embracing us and saying, 'well done, well done.'"
Due co-authored a book in 2003 with her daughter Tananarive Due called "Freedom In The Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights." Due wanted the stories of the Florida civil rights movement and its key players to be remembered for their contributions to the fight against social injustice. According to the family, Due remarked, "Stories live forever. Story tellers don't."
The book was honored by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
In 2006, The History Channel's award-winning series "Voices of Civil Rights" profiled Due.
She was recently honored by Tallahassee Mayor John R. Marks, who issued a proclamation declaring May 11, 2011, "Patricia Stephens Due Day."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott praised Due in a private letter last year recognizing her "impact as a civil rights pioneer" and commending her for her "lifetime of advocacy and commitment to achieving racial justice in America."
Scott called Due's actions "a significant moment in our country's history and ... an incredible source of inspiration still today."
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Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72
By the CNN Wire... more
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Los Angeles Times...
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Buffalo Soldiers tell their stories
Two Buffalo Soldiers speak at the Autry museum, recalling their experiences as black men in the then-segregated Army. It was one of many L.A.-area events honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
PHOTO:
James Cooper, left, and Andrew Aaron speak at the Autry museum about their experiences as Buffalo Soldiers. “I want them to remember what we accomplished as a black people … and that we’re still marching on,” Cooper said.
(Katie Falkenberg, For The Times / January 15, 2012)
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By Ari Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times
January 16, 2012
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When James Cooper was a teenager in segregated Louisiana, he worked at a factory for $2 a day and didn't see a bright future.
So he entered the military, attracted by such benefits as free lodging and meals, and eventually joined the ranks of one of the first African American regiments in the U.S. Army, becoming what was known as a Buffalo Soldier.
"Why did I join the Army? Survival. At 17, I looked at the Army and it was better than what I had," Cooper, now 89, told a small audience Sunday at the Autry National Center of the American West, in one of many events commemorating the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
A program in Culver City featured a panel discussion, poetry, choral and jazz music and a staged reading of a play called "The Dreamers" featuring Margaret Avery, an actress best known for her role in "The Color Purple." In Exposition Park, the California African American Museum kicked off a two-day program with a celebration called One Dream, a National Influence, a World of People.
At the Autry, Cooper spoke of the need to tell younger people about the Buffalo Soldiers as time rapidly shrinks their ranks.
"I want them to remember what we accomplished as a black people … and that we're still marching on," he said.
The first African American regiments in the Army were authorized by an act of Congress in 1866.
Buffalo Soldiers guarded the Western frontier and fought in the Spanish-American War, both world wars and other conflicts. The all-black regiments disbanded in the early 1950s as the military desegregated.
Cooper and fellow Buffalo Soldier Andrew Aaron spoke in front of the Autry museum's exhibit on Henry O. Flipper, the first African American cadet to graduate from West Point. The two men talked about their experiences fighting in Korea, Japan and Italy, and they wore high blue hats, blue jackets adorned with medals and yellow ties decorated with images of Buffalo Soldiers.
Their audience of about two dozen included children — some squirmy and some eager to take photos. One child asked whether Cooper and Aaron were the first Buffalo Soldiers, to which the 80-year-old Aaron replied: "Weren't the first, one of the last."
It is unclear how many Buffalo Soldiers are still alive. Charles L. Davis, who helps organize some of their public appearances, called their story "a treasure that we're letting fade away."
"If you don't keep that bandwagon going," Davis said, "people will throw dirt over your history."
.Los Angeles Times...
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Buffalo Soldiers tell their stories
Two Buffalo... more
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WBRC...
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth passes away
Updated: Oct 05, 2011 11:27 AM PDT
By Dennis Washington
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Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth speaks with FOX6 WBRC-TV during an interview in 2003. (WBRC video) Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth speaks with FOX6 WBRC-TV during an interview in 2003. (WBRC video)
Shuttlesworth is in the center, Martin Luther King, Jr. on the left, Abernathy on the right. They were at the AG Gaston Hotel announcing the Birmingham Truce. (WBRC video)
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BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) -
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The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a leader of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the 1950's, passed away Wednesday morning after a long illness. He was 89.
Sources tell FOX6 News Shuttlesworth died at 10:28 a.m.
"We have lost a true American hero," Dr. Lawrence Pijeaux, President and CEO of the BCRI, said. Pijeaux described Shuttlesworth as a mentor and "a man whose efforts during the 50's and 60's still have a positive impact on human relations around the world."
Birmingham Mayor William Bell issued a statement expressing condolences after hearing about Shuttlesworth's death.
"We are saddened at the passing of Dr. Shuttlesworth and extend our deepest condolences to his family. Dr. Shuttlesworth means so much to this City and his legacy will continue for generations to come," Bell said.
Mayor Bell ordered all flags on city buildings in Birmingham be lowered to half mast in Shuttlesworth's honor. The flags will remain at half mast until after his funeral.
Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell sent a statement of response to Shuttlesworth's death as well.
"Today we mourn the loss of a true soldier for equality. Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was a fearless freedom fighter and tenacious Civil Rights leader. I am deeply saddened by his passing today," the congresswoman said.
"I know that I stand on the shoulders of Civil Rights icons like Reverend Shuttlesworth. It was the sacrifices and courage of Reverend Shuttlesworth and so many others that forged the path for me to be elected Alabama's first African American Congresswoman, and for that I am eternally grateful," Sewell said.
Shuttlesworth, born in Mount Meigs, AL, in 1922, was very active as a preacher of the gospel and civil rights in Birmingham during the 1950's. He served as pastor of Birmingham's Bethel Baptist Church. He was beaten and arrested numerous times for his activism and was the target of several acts of violence, including the bombing of his house on Christmas Day in 1956 and a beating in front of the old Phillips High School in 1957.
Shuttlesworth formed the Alabama Christian Rights Movement and helped create the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which he was secretary for many years.
Shuttlesworth left Alabama in 1961 and moved to Cincinatti to become pastor of Revelation Baptist Church and, later, Greater Light Baptist Church, where he continued to work against racism. However, he frequently returned to Alabama to continue efforts to end racism. Shuttlesworth organized numerous lunch counter sit-ins and bus boycotts during the 1960's. He also helped organize the Freedom Rides and Project C.
In 2000, Shuttlesworth was awarded the President's Citizens Medal by President Clinton. He returned to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007.
In October 2008, the Birmingham Airport Authority changed the name of the Birmingham International Airport to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.
.WBRC...
Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth passes away
Updated: Oct 05, 2011 11:27 AM PDT... more
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Uploaded by bravenewfoundation on Aug 14, 2011
This film and investigation connects the dots and reveals why the Koch brothers are trying to end public education and how their wealth winds up in the hands of Jim Crow. Watch the video, then call David Koch and tell him to stop funding school resegregation now. His number is 212-319-1100.Uploaded by bravenewfoundation on Aug 14, 2011
This film and investigation... more
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Remembering the Freedom Rides
In 1961, riders black and white headed South to test the region's segregation laws. Things turned violent in Alabama. Fifty years later, cities along the route are marking the rides with exhibit, murals and a new museum.
PHOTO: A Greyhound bus that carried Freedom Riders burns after being set ablaze by Ku Klux Klan members in 1961. (Joseph Postiglione / Birmingham)
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PART ONE...
By Larry Bleiberg, Special to the Los Angeles Times
April 24, 2011
Reporting from Montgomery, Ala.—
As the bus leaves Atlanta, Dennis Climpson is eager for conversation. He wants to talk about college football this Sunday morning, but I have a question for him. "Have you ever heard of the Freedom Rides?" I ask.
Fifty years ago next month, a group of 15 passengers travels the same route. Like us, they were blacks and whites sitting together on buses, then a violation of segregation laws. Climpson, 48, says he hasn't heard of the protests, but he's intrigued. As Interstate 20 passes by, he turns to his smartphone to check Wikipedia.
In 1961, Charles Person was 18 and the youngest of the Freedom Riders, who were traveling on two buses to New Orleans from Washington, D.C. The Georgia native still remembers crossing into Alabama that Mother's Day. "There was tension. It was kind of eerie."
Person expected to be harassed and roughed up as the group tested compliance with federal integration laws, but he didn't imagine much worse. "This was broad daylight," he says.
Later that day, members of the Ku Klux Klan would set fire to one bus and beat riders on the other with pipes, chains and bats. Over the next week, the world would watch as the Kennedy administration struggled to protect the protesters.
The racial violence shocked — and changed — America.
Today you can retrace the Freedom Rides easily by car or bus. The Alabama cities on the route are marking the anniversary with murals, exhibits and a new museum. It's a leisurely tour of the Deep South, where you'll find gracious hosts, good food and stark reminders of a not-so-distant past.
Climpson, who is bound for Jackson, Miss., to start a new truck-driving job, can't believe what he's reading on his phone.
"Anniston, Ala.?" he asks, pointing to the screen. "I thought that was a quiet town."
Half a century ago, when the Greyhound bus carrying some of the Freedom Riders pulled into Anniston, in the foothills of the Appalachians, a crowd awaited. Klan members pummeled the vehicle and slashed its tires. It limped away 20 minutes later, and a convoy of cars followed. Six miles later, the bus stopped with a flat.
Bernard Emerson still lives on a hill overlooking the spot, which now bears a historic marker. Someone had tossed burning rags through a smashed bus window. "The smoke was getting pretty thick," he recalls. "One lady was coming out of the window. She got her foot caught, and she was kind of hanging there."
Anniston, a town of 23,000, has only recently acknowledged the incident, commissioning murals and detailed exhibit signs at its former bus stations, two blocks from the current stop. I took a layover for a few hours to look around and eventually found my way to a converted Woolworth's, now a restaurant called Classic on Noble. Its Sunday brunch recalls a Southern country club buffet: more than 100 offerings, including fried green tomatoes, grits, shrimp salad, beef tenderloin and a dessert counter with 26 pies, cobblers and cakes. The after-church crowd is predominately white, but a few black guests feast too.
"We're a nice town," the hostess tells me. "We have a dark past, but we've overcome it."
When the second bus reached Anniston in 1961, a pair of Klansmen boarded and beat the riders, causing permanent brain damage to one. The Klansmen warned them that worse awaited 60 miles down the road in Birmingham.
"They taunted us all the way," Person says. Still, the wounded protesters stuck to their plan; when they arrived, they headed to the white waiting room in the Trailways bus station.
"The walls were surrounded by a group of men," Person recalls. "As we got toward the center, they started coming toward us."
Person, who had been trained to practice Gandhian nonviolence, was immediately set upon. "Everyone had a chance to punch me," he says. His head was bashed with a pipe. Then a news photographer snapped a picture, distracting Person's attackers. "I just walked out of my jacket," he recalls. "I did not run. I was still under control."
He stepped outside and boarded a city bus. The first Freedom Rides had ended, and Person had escaped with his life.
CONTINUED...Remembering the Freedom Rides
In 1961, riders black and white headed South to test... more
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If what you need is someone to march you straight into a new Dark Ages the Texas Guv is your man.
The great and powerful Texas Red land of superlatives and compassionate conservative religiosities is also and maybe mostly a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way.If what you need is someone to march you straight into a new Dark Ages the Texas Guv... more
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In 1998, the small East Texas town of Jasper was shaken by the brutal, racially motivated killing of a forty-nine-year old African American named James Byrd Jr. The international coverage of that traumatic race-crime did not, for the most part, reveal the stark past and complicated social life of this historically segregated community. For example, little notice was paid to the photographs of Alonzo Jordan (1903-1984), a local photographer who had made Byrd’s high school graduation portrait, and who had worked for more than forty years to document African Americans in Jasper and in the surrounding rural areas. Jordan’s photographs are the subject of an exhibition, “Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan,” presently on view at The International Center of Photography in New York City.
Like many small-town photographers, Alonzo Jordan fulfilled various roles in the community. A barber by trade, Alonzo Jordan was also a Prince Hall Mason, a deacon in his church, an educator and a local leader, who took up photography to fill a social need he recognized. Over the years, he documented the everyday world of black East Texas, especially the civic events and social rituals that were integral to the daily life of the people he served. In addition to revealing the African American culture of Jasper during the Civil Rights era, this exhibition challenges the existing formalistic approaches to the study of vernacular photography. It considers Jordan’s distinguished career as a “community photographer.”
In communities across the nation, photographs of this kind have been proudly displayed for decades in people’s homes, local churches, businesses, civic buildings and schools, because they document groups and individuals who are held in high esteem. Frequently, the photographer is not identified or credited, because the emphasis is upon the family, social and professional groups, and the recognition of the community infrastructure.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution black-and-white vintage photographs, a slide show and a documentary short film about the life of James Byrd Jr.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/jasper-texas-the-hidden-half-of-a-small-texas-town/In 1998, the small East Texas town of Jasper was shaken by the brutal, racially... more
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A high school has defended its decision to segregate students by race and gender.
The scheme, at McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, separates black students from the rest of the school pupils, and then further breaks it down into black females and black males.
The separation is only for a short period - six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month - but it has drawn criticism for raising the spectre of racial segregation.
Today the school's principal defended the policy.
Bill Jimenez said the school noticed that black students were not performing as well as other students, and that research had shown that same-race classes with strong same-race role models led to better academic results.
Mr Jimenez admitted that no other students were divided by race at the school, but he added that academic data dictated the school take a different approach with its black students.
He told Lancasteronline.com: 'One of the things we said when we did this was, "Let's look at the data, let's not run from it. Let's confront it and see what we can do about it".'
The idea came from Angela Tilghman, an instructional coach at McCaskey East.
She said statistics had shown about a third of McCaskey's African-Americans scored proficient or advanced in reading on last year's Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, compared with 60 per cent of white students and 42 per cent of students overall.
In mathematics, only 27 per cent of black students scored proficient or advanced.
She said research had shown that grouping black students by gender with a strong role model could boost both academic achievement and self-esteem.
Some students, staff and parents were against the segregation, saying that it ran against everything the school stood for - with students from diverse backgrounds.
But it was something Mr Jimenez thought was worth trying.
In all segregated classes, mentors track their students' grades, test scores and attendance.
One such mentor is Michael Mitchell, who hopes to inspire his black male students during their short daily meetings.
He said he often quoted the Reverend Martin Luther King, who said: 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.'
Mr Mitchell recently used the quote when he found that some of his students were failing gym.
He said: 'They're all young. They're all strong. They're all athletic. But they're failing because they chose not to participate.
'That's an example of "conscientious stupidity". You can do but you choose not to do. These are the things we need to get away from.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350864/School-defends-separation-black-students-boost-academic-results.html#ixzz1COIq48PwA high school has defended its decision to segregate students by race and gender.
The... more
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It likely is of little surprise that while none of San Antonio, Bexar County’s, 16 apartheid public education school districts earned five stars “in the Financial Allocation Study for Texas, or FAST, report of those that scored respectably all but one is on San Antonio’s North Side.
The study, released last Wednesday by Comptroller Susan Combs, rates Texas districts on a scale of one to five relative to their “fiscal peers.” Three of four districts earning 3.5 stars are located on the northside.
San Antonio, Edgewood and South San Antonio ISDs (inner-city and South Side districts) garnered 1.5 stars.It likely is of little surprise that while none of San Antonio, Bexar County’s,... more
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We live in a culture in which the average citizen is more concerned with who is judging American Idol, who was just kicked off Dancing with the Stars or simply prefers to sit back and watch Survivor than in staying informed about the state of our republic and civil liberties.
Given our apartheid public education system could it be otherwise? Presently schools are more segregated than they were 15 years ago. The ridiculous and convoluted “Robin Hood” system of school funding in Texas Red is little more than institutionalized madness that encourages “rich” school districts to hold on to the millions of dollars allotted for “poor” school districts.We live in a culture in which the average citizen is more concerned with who is... more
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Amnesty International has urged the Slovak government to immediately end the segregation of Romani children in the country's education system.
This practice leaves thousands of Romani pupils in substandard education in schools and classes for pupils with "mild mental disabilities" or ethnically segregated mainstream schools and classes.
In a briefing to the Slovak government, Steps to end segregation in education, Amnesty International points to serious gaps in the enforcement and monitoring of the ban on discrimination and segregation in the Slovak educational system.Amnesty International has urged the Slovak government to immediately end the... more
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The Slovak government still uses segregation of Romani children in the country's education system.
This practice leaves thousands of Romani pupils in substandard education in schools and classes for pupils with "mild mental disabilities" or ethnically segregated mainstream schools and classes.The Slovak government still uses segregation of Romani children in the country's... more
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Decades after U.S. schools were desegregated and more than a year after the election of the country's first black president, both black and white children show a bias toward lighter skin, according to a new study commissioned by CNN.Decades after U.S. schools were desegregated and more than a year after the election... more
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http://brownvboard.org/trvlexbt/pnl10/pnl10-1.jpg
Judge tells Mississippi Schools To Stop Segregating
(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered a rural Mississippi school district to comply with a nearly 40-year-old order and halt long-disputed practices that led to racial segregation in its schools.
The Justice Department accused the Walthall County School District in rural Mississippi of annually permitting more than 300 students, most of them white, to transfer to a school outside of their residential area, shifting its racial makeup.
Further, administrators at three other schools grouped most of the white students into their own classrooms "resulting in significant numbers of segregated all-black classrooms at each grade level," the U.S. government said in a court filing.
The case comes in a state that was at the heart of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. In 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, an incident that helped prompt Congress to pass a law banning racial segregation in schools, work and public places.
The school district was ordered in 1970 to stop segregating its schools. But in the late 1980s officials were confronted by the Justice Department with concerns about student transfers to other schools that undermined the desegregation efforts.
While the district made some changes in the early 1990s, the Justice Department said the practices continued and the schools became "significantly more segregated." The district did not respond to the government's lawsuit seeking reforms.
In fact, the county school board in 2009 rejected a tentative settlement with the government that would have overhauled the district's transfer policy and prevented students being assigned to classrooms based on race.
LIMIT TRANSFERS
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tom Lee, in Jackson, Mississippi, ordered the school district to significantly limit transfers. Lee also ordered the district to stop assigning students to classrooms that resulted in segregation, demanding that it use a software program to randomly assign them.
"It is unacceptable for school districts to act in a way that encourages or tolerates the resegregation of public schools," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
In 2008, the Walthall district had about 2,550 students -- of whom about 64 percent were black and 35 percent were white.
At four schools, less than a quarter of the students were white while at least 73 percent of the students were black in 2008, according to the government court filing. In 1992, the racial makeup of those schools was between 59 percent and 70 percent black and at least 30 percent white.
Meanwhile at another school, Salem Attendance Center, 66 percent of the students were white while a third were black students in 2008. That was a dramatic shift from 1992 when a majority, 58 percent, were black and 42 percent were white.
The change in the school racial makeup was not because of population shifts, but rather "the product of unlawful district transfer policies that permit hundreds of white students" to transfer each year, the Justice Department said.
The superintendent for the district declined to comment on the judge's ruling.http://brownvboard.org/trvlexbt/pnl10/pnl10-1.jpg
Judge tells Mississippi Schools... more
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A U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered a rural Mississippi school district to comply with a nearly 40-year-old order and halt long-disputed practices that led to racial segregation in its schools.
The Justice Department accused the Walthall County School District in rural Mississippi of annually permitting more than 300 students, most of them white, to transfer to a school outside of their residential area, shifting its racial makeup.
Further, administrators at three other schools grouped most of the white students into their own classrooms "resulting in significant numbers of segregated all-black classrooms at each grade level," the U.S. government said in a court filing.
The case comes in a state that was at the heart of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960s. In 1964, three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi, an incident that helped prompt Congress to pass a law banning racial segregation in schools, work and public places.
The school district was ordered in 1970 to stop segregating its schools. But in the late 1980s officials were confronted by the Justice Department with concerns about student transfers to other schools that undermined the desegregation efforts.
While the district made some changes in the early 1990s, the Justice Department said the practices continued and the schools became "significantly more segregated." The district did not respond to the government's lawsuit seeking reforms.
In fact, the county school board in 2009 rejected a tentative settlement with the government that would have overhauled the district's transfer policy and prevented students being assigned to classrooms based on race.
READ MORE AT LINKA U.S. judge on Tuesday ordered a rural Mississippi school district to comply with a... more
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Fellow Bay Area journalists Project Censored have just released their annual book of "The News That Didn't Make the News": stories that weren't reported on, were misrepresented or were underreported by the mainstream media. The program teams college students and journalists to do in-depth investigative reporting projects.
Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.
The list makes for great reading, but here are a few highlights.
2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
In Latino and African American populations, two of every five students attend intensely segregated schools. For Latinos this increase in segregation reflects growing residential segregation. For blacks a significant part of the reversal reflects the ending of desegregation plans in public schools throughout the nation.
10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
In November 2008, Ecuador became the first country to undertake an examination of the legitimacy and structure of its foreign debt. An independent debt audit commissioned by the government of Ecuador documented hundreds of allegations of irregularity, illegality, and illegitimacy in contracts of debt to predatory international lenders. The loans, according to the report, violated Ecuador’s domestic laws, US Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and general principles of international law. Ecuador’s use of legitimacy as a legal argument for defaulting set a major precedent; indeed, the formation of a debt auditing commission sets a precedent.
21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
Many states are in the midst of an aggressive action to push thousands of eligible mothers off Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), traditionally known as welfare. Families are being denied aid so that savings can be redirected in state budgets.
Part of our mission here at Current is to highlight and uncover untold or little-told stories as well. So, as always, if there are any stories you don't think are getting the coverage they deserve, let us know.
Some underreported stories we've covered:
- From Russia With Hate: Vanguard's award-winning look at the rise of neo-Nazis in Russia
- China's Wild West: Laura Ling covers the Uighurs in Xinjiang Province, ChinaFellow Bay Area journalists Project Censored have just released their annual book of... more
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First nations chief demands all non-natives immediately leave reserve. If they marry a Mohawk or native they may stay.First nations chief demands all non-natives immediately leave reserve. If they marry a... more
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The apartheid, racial segregation between whites and blacks in South Africa was in force until 1994 and in the United States in practice until the 60s. But those situations were determined by historical roots going back two or three centuries. Italy however is building its apartheid in less than twenty years. Before 1989 immigration in our country was so limited as not to be significant, but today we have race riots and school classes with a 30% maximum of foreigners.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/news/italiaapartheid090110.htmlThe apartheid, racial segregation between whites and blacks in South Africa was in... more
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A racially-tinged advertising decision has gone awry for the movie "Couples Retreat."
Marketers of the Vince Vaughn comedy, which stars four couples in a tropical paradise, removed black actors Faizon Love and Kali Hawk from the promotional poster used in the United Kingdom after the U.S. version used all four couples. In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are most [recognizable] in international markets."
Not saying there was profiling,....BUT----
-----------uhm,....like,...dude,.....wasn't there a big beefy black guy here, and a HOTTIE hangin with? (and later a more "seasoned" woman,....see film)
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-couples-retreat-posters.htmlA racially-tinged advertising decision has gone awry for the movie "Couples... more
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