White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin M. Kruse

Author:Kevin M. Kruse [Kruse, Kevin M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: 20th Century, Conservatism & Liberalism, History, Minority Studies, Non-Fiction, Political Ideologies, Political Science, Social Science, Sociology, State & Local, United States, Urban
ISBN: 9781400848973
Google: 1aQoXxnENigC
Amazon: 0691133867
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2007-07-28T23:00:00+00:00

PRIVATE SCHOOLS: SEGREGATION ACADEMIES AND RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS

As whites abandoned public schools, private schools surfaced as an attractive alternative. In truth, white Atlantans’ movement toward private education had been underway for a decade, ever since the creation of Talmadge’s “private-school plan.” But at the end of the 1950s, when it seemed increasingly likely that conflict between the state’s massive-resistance legislation and federal court orders would force all of Atlanta’s public schools to close, this interest in private schools surged. In the fall of 1959 private academies in Atlanta reported record numbers of requests for admission. One school tripled its enrollment that year, while another enrolled a thousand students and turned away nearly twice as many more. The rush for private schools was so great, in fact, that a number of new schools were hastily thrown together to satisfy the demand. A wide variety of Atlantans, from neighborhood church leaders to the commander of a local air force base, created contingency plans for their own private schools in case public ones closed. These plans, however, were merely preparations for a worst-case scenario that never came. As the school closing crisis passed, so too did they.15

More ominous were the “segregation academies” established as a permanent escape from the public schools, whether they were closed or kept open on a desegregated basis. The Ku Klux Klan, for one, announced in January 1960 that it would start a school in Atlanta. All the city’s white children would be welcome, Grand Dragon Lee Davidson announced, not simply the sons and daughters of the hooded order. Not to be outdone, segregationist suburbanites presented their own plans. Twenty businessmen in Marietta, for instance, obtained a corporate charter for a segregated school in January 1959 and mailed out a thousand applications to prospective parents. Another group, the Cobb County White Citizens for Segregation, claimed it would construct two additional academies for white children the following year.16

The success of these segregation academies, however, rested on their affordability. Many whites wanted segregated education for their children, but few could pay for it on their own. Therefore, supporters of segregation academies tried to tap into state funds to help parents of all classes send their children there. Initially, they hoped to use new legislation that allowed Georgians to give money to private schools instead of paying their state income tax. Similar tax credits had been installed by segregationists in Virginia, as a way of channeling public tax money to private segregated schools, and Georgia hoped to follow their example. In April 1959 Atlanta attorney Moreton Rolleston and several white parents chartered a new organization for segregated education, which they not-so-subtly called the Patrick Henry Schools, Inc. Immediately, they applied for tax-exempt status. However, the state commissioner of revenue worried that approval would set a dangerous precedent and bankrupt the state. Using authority granted to him by the law, he refused the request. With no private schools able to qualify for tax-exempt donations, the whole plan proved pointless.17

Supporters of segregation academies then turned to the state’s Tuition Grant Law, part of the original “private-school plan.

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