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With Justice and Equality for Some…

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St. Louis School Desegregation

Part of the book series: Historical Studies in Education ((HSE))

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Abstract

Chapter 4 offers a biography of Minnie Liddell, the married, stay-at-home mother of five, whose children were shuffled from one dilapidated northside school to another. In 1972, Liddell sued the St. Louis Board of Education for failing to provide black children with equal access to quality schools. The lawsuit resulted in the creation of the Voluntary Transfer Program, which utilized city-to-county transfers of students. It was the largest and most expensive desegregation program in the country. This chapter introduces the gendered forms of power that are discussed later in the book and provides a counter-narrative to arguments that black parents did not work to provide quality education for their children. Liddell’s nearly 30-year struggle to provide black students in St. Louis with access to quality schools serves as a stark example that the dismantling of school segregation required tremendous work. The task still has not been completely accomplished.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dale Singer, “Mother on the March,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 31, 1998.

  2. 2.

    Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle, 15.

  3. 3.

    “Liddell is 40: Commemorating the Desegregation Movement in St. Louis and a Look at the Future of Urban Education,” Thursday, March 22, 2012, Washington University Law, http://law.wustl.edu/events/pages.aspx?id=9076.

  4. 4.

    Kimberly Norwood, Interview with author, June 5, 2014.

  5. 5.

    Kimberly Jade Norwood, “Minnie Liddell’s Forty-Year Quest for Quality Public Education Remains a Dream Deferred,” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 40 (2012): 1–67.

  6. 6.

    Singer, “Mother on the March.”

  7. 7.

    William H. Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation and School Choice in the Land of Dred Scott,” in Divided We Fail: Coming Together Through Public School Choice, ed. The Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2002), 209.

  8. 8.

    See Jeannie Oaks, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); see also Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle. While Jeannie Oakes does not discuss St. Louis specifically, she writes about tracking as a form of continued segregation. Heaney and Uchitelle discuss St. Louis, specifically, and offer mixed reviews of the St. Louis desegregation program.

  9. 9.

    Trenay Wallace, interview with Hope Rias, August 12, 2014.

  10. 10.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 1979 (District Court).

  11. 11.

    See “Desegregation Opposition,” Science News-Letter 65, no. 22 (1954): 338, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3933501.

  12. 12.

    Edward Kohn, “An Era May Be Ending for Schools,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 4, 1980, 3C, retrieved from Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Heaney Desegregation Case, Box 7.

  13. 13.

    Ibid. See also Susan Uchitelle’s interview with Hope Rias. This policy was enacted for Minnie Liddell’s son Craton, on whose behalf she filed a lawsuit against the St. Louis Board of Education. Craton attended an overcrowded, segregated school on the northside of St. Louis. He, along with his teacher and classmates, was later bused to an all-white school on the southside where they maintained separate status from other students. This practice of intact busing was a common way that school districts avoided desegregation.

  14. 14.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 469 F. Supp. 1304, 1979, (District Court).

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    Ibid.

  18. 18.

    Amy Stuart Wells and Robert L. Crain, Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 263–264.

  20. 20.

    Desegregation Monitoring Committee, “Chronology of Desegregation in St. Louis,” St. Louis Public Schools, March 8, 1999. Accessed November 20, 2012, http://dtd1.slps.k12.mo.us/offices/deseg/chronol.htm. See also Selwyn K. Troen and Glen E. Holt, St. Louis (New York: New Viewpoints, 1977), 80. See Also, “A Preservation Plan for St. Louis, Part I: Historic Contexts,” https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/planning/cultural-resources/preservation-plan/Part-I-African-American-Experience.cfm.

  21. 21.

    Ibid. “African Americans in Missouri,” Black Archives of Mid-America, http://www.blackarchives.org/articles/african-americans-missouri.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    “Progress Amidst Prejudice: Portraits of African Americans in Missouri, 1880–1920,” Missouri State Archives, Fact Sheet, Literacy (Source: Jessie Carney Smith and Carrell Peterson Horton, eds., Historical Statistics of Black America, vols. 1 and 2 [New York: Gale Research, 1995]), Missouri Digital Heritage, accessed December 7, 2012, http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/education/aapc/fact_sheet.asp.

  24. 24.

    Ibid. This fact sheet makes no attempt to explain the decrease in illiterate blacks.

  25. 25.

    Troen and Holt, St. Louis, 80.

  26. 26.

    The terms integration and desegregation are intentionally used here. Integration refers to meaningful interaction with people of different races. Desegregation refers to the shifting of racial populations. Newspaper articles and archival data show that blacks never believed that true integration was going to happen in their schools. Therefore, they commonly used the term desegregation to refer to the shifting of children from predominately black to predominately white schools.

  27. 27.

    Troen and Holt, St. Louis, 80.

  28. 28.

    “Sumner’s History,” Sumner High School, accessed July 16, 2015, http://www.slps.org/domain/8207; see also Ray Bosenbecker, So, Where’d You Go to High School? Vol. 1: Affton to Yeshiva: 200 Years of St. Louis Area High Schools (St. Louis, MO: Virginia Publishing, 2004); see also Desegregation Monitoring Committee, “Chronology of Desegregation in St. Louis,” St. Louis Public Schools, March 8, 1999. Accessed November 20, 2012, http://dtd1.slps.k12.mo.us/offices/deseg/chronol.htm; see also Elisa Crouch, “Sumner Celebrates Its Past Amid Worries about the Future,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 23, 2015. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/sumner-celebrates-its-past-amid-worries-about-the-future/article_fa935619-5d64-5fb0-ab60-caecc76f0f92.html. Sumner High School’s website states that the school was founded in 1867 as District School No. 3, which was an elementary school. It became known as Sumner High School in 1875, see http://www.slps.org/domain/8207. The alumni of Vashon High School speak to the quality of education of the school. Notable Sumner High School alumni include tennis player Arthur Ashe; musician Chuck Berry; comedian Dick Gregory; actor and singer Robert Guillaume; Robert McFerrin, opera singer and father of Bobby McFerrin; Wendell O. Pruitt, pioneering military pilot and Tuskegee Airman in whose honor the notorious Pruitt–Igoe housing projects were posthumously named; and singer Tina Turner. See also Bernard Weinraub, “Sweet Tunes, Fast Beats and a Hard Edge,” New York Times, February 23, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/us/sweet-tunes-fast-beats-and-a-hard-edge.html. In 1988, Sumner High School was added to the National Register of Historic Places. See “National Register Information System,” National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, November 11, 2013.

  29. 29.

    “A Complaint with Illustrations to The Board of Education of St. Louis, June 11, 1907, from the Colored Citizens of St. Louis Regarding Sumner High School,” Sumner High School, accessed July 16, 2015, http://www.slps.org/Page/28605.

  30. 30.

    Virginia Hick, “Vashon: Past Glory May Figure In Future,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 18, 1990, assessed July 16, 2015, http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/0EB04C92547C9239?p=AWNB. Notable Vashon alumni include: Lloyd Gaines, plaintiff in Gaines v. Canada (1938), and United States Congresswoman Maxine Waters. A brief history of Vashon High School can be found on the school’s website, http://www.slps.org/domain/2956.

  31. 31.

    See the St. Louis Public Schools’ website, http://www.slps.org/domain/2956; see also, http://www.slps.org/cms/lib03/MO01001157/Centricity/Domain/2936/Vashon.pdf.

  32. 32.

    The school now known as Harris-Stowe State University was founded in 1857 as St. Louis Normal School and served whites only. It was renamed Harris Teachers College in honor of William Torrey Harris, St. Louis School Superintendent. Sumner Normal School for blacks was established in 1890 and was an extension of Sumner High School; in 1929, the school was renamed Stowe Teachers College in honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe. In 1954, the two normal schools merged to form Harris Teachers College. In 1979, it was renamed Harris-Stowe State College, and in 2005 it became Harris-Stowe State University. http://www.hssu.edu/sp_content.cfm?wID=50&pID=478.

  33. 33.

    See the St. Louis Public Schools’ website, Vashon High School, “A History of Vashon High School,” http://www.slps.org/domain/2956; see also, St. Louis Public Schools, “Vashon High School: From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,” http://www.slps.org/cms/lib03/MO01001157/Centricity/Domain/2936/Vashon.pdf.

  34. 34.

    Carlotta Walls LaNier and Lisa Frazier Page, A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School, with a foreword by Bill Clinton (New York: One World/Ballantine Books, 2009), 205.

  35. 35.

    Yeatman-Liddell College Preparatory School website, http://www.slps.org/Domain/3622.

  36. 36.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 469 F. Supp. 1304, 1979, (District Court).

  37. 37.

    Ibid.

  38. 38.

    Kohn, “Era May Be Ending,” 3C.

  39. 39.

    Singer, “Mother on the March,” 12.

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle, 15–20.

  42. 42.

    Personal Interview with Minnie Liddell, quoted in Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle.

  43. 43.

    Singer, “Mother on the March.”

  44. 44.

    William H. Freivogel, “Desegregation Program Began with a Mother’s Concern for Her Son,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 14, 2003, http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/desegregation-program-began-with-a-mother-s-concern-for-her/article_dbcf1ec8-152f-11e1-9f6c-0019bb30f31a.html.

  45. 45.

    Ibid. There were only a few lawsuits that related to the implementation of desegregation itself; the bulk of the lawsuits, particularly the later ones, related to the funding of desegregation.

  46. 46.

    Singer, “Mother on the March.”

  47. 47.

    Robert Tabscott, “Minnie Liddell’s Quest,” St. Louis Beacon, September 29, 2009, https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/20621/minnie_liddells_quest.

  48. 48.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 469 F. Supp. 1304.

  49. 49.

    Ibid. See also Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle.

  50. 50.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 1979.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., Appendix B.

  52. 52.

    Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle; Liddell v. St. Louis Board of Education, 1979.

  53. 53.

    Heaney and Uchitelle, Unending Struggle, 88.

  54. 54.

    Liddell v. St. Louis Board of Education, 1979.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, Consent Decree, 1975, (District Court).

  57. 57.

    Liddell’s other children were involved in transfers also. Because Craton was the eldest and the defendant, I only discuss his transfer here. In future research, perhaps the transfer possibilities of the other children can be discussed to add greater detail to the research. For now, Craton’s transfer offers sufficient information to show how the court ruled.

  58. 58.

    Liddell v. Board of Education, 469 F. Supp. 1304.

  59. 59.

    Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation.”

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists.

  62. 62.

    Ibid.

  63. 63.

    For a detailed history of St. Louis schools, see Selwyn K. Troen, “Popular Education in Nineteenth Century St. Louis,” History of Education Quarterly 13, no. 1 (Spring, 1973): 23–40, and Calvin M. Woodward, “A New Era in the Public Schools of St. Louis,” School Review 11 (June 1, 1903): 486–494, https://archive.org/details/jstor-1075859.

  64. 64.

    In the research used for this work, St. Louisans often used the terms “desegregation” and “integration” interchangeably. Desegregation seems to be what black parents believed would occur in suburban schools, meaning that they believed their children would simply be placed in white schools with little expectation of meaningful social interaction with the other students or even teachers. Integration seems to be what white parents feared would happen when blacks were admitted to predominately white schools. Parents feared that black students would change the culture of the school in negative ways and that their presence would be quite meaningful in all the wrong ways. Unless quoting directly, I use the term desegregation to refer to the process of moving students from one space to another. Integration refers to the meaningful interaction of people of different races.

  65. 65.

    Dale Singer, “Mother on the March.”

  66. 66.

    Dale Singer, interview with Hope Rias, June 4, 2014.

  67. 67.

    Troen and Holt, St. Louis, 198–204.

  68. 68.

    “A History of Vashon High School,” St. Louis Public Schools, http://www.slps.org/domain/2956. Vashon High School is located in St. Louis city, and was resegregated because of white flight, even though 1980s policy implemented desegregation in city schools three years before suburban schools.

  69. 69.

    Archival letters from Barbara Mueller and Margaret Irvin express these sentiments. See Richard Gephardt Archival Collection at the St. Louis History Museum Library, Box 1, Folder 2.

  70. 70.

    Steven L. Schlossman, “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education? German in the Public Elementary Schools, 1840–1919,” American Journal of Education 91, no. 2 (February 1983): 143–144, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1085040.

  71. 71.

    Freivogel, “St. Louis: Desegregation.”

  72. 72.

    Jill Ogline Titus, Brown’s Battleground: Students, Segregationists, and the Struggle for Justice in Prince Edward County, Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

  73. 73.

    Ansley T. Erickson, Making the Unequal Metropolis: School Desegregation and Its Limits (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

  74. 74.

    Catherine Fosl and Tracy E. K’Meyer, Freedom on the Border: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2009), 52.

  75. 75.

    Ibid., 53.

  76. 76.

    Sarah Garland, Divided We Fail: The Story of an African American Community That Ended the Era of School Desegregation (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).

  77. 77.

    Karen Anderson, Little Rock: Race and Resistance at Central High School (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 216.

  78. 78.

    Ibid.

  79. 79.

    Ibid.

  80. 80.

    Michael K. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 126.

  81. 81.

    Ibid., 8–10, 126.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., 44.

  83. 83.

    Ibid., 44–60.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., 152.

  85. 85.

    See United States Commission on Civil Rights, A Long Day’s Journey into Light: School Desegregation in Prince George’s County (Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1976); see also David S. Cecelski, Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994).

  86. 86.

    Brett Gadsden, Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 2.

  87. 87.

    Ibid., 16.

  88. 88.

    Howell S. Baum, Brown in Baltimore: School Desegregation and the Limits of Liberalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010).

  89. 89.

    Ibid., 57.

  90. 90.

    Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 70, 203.

  91. 91.

    See Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410 (D.C. Mass., June 21, 1974). In 1974, Morgan v. Hennigan resulted in a legal ruling that Boston Public Schools were guilty of operating a dual school system as a result of de facto segregation. District Court Judge Wendell Arthur Garrity demanded redistricting and the busing of 15,000 black students as a remedy for segregation.

  92. 92.

    Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 3.

  93. 93.

    Ibid., 19.

  94. 94.

    Gregory S. Jacobs, Getting Around Brown: Desegregation, Development, and Columbus Public Schools (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998).

  95. 95.

    Joyce Baugh, The Detroit School Busing Case (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 19.

  96. 96.

    Ibid., 20.

  97. 97.

    Dionne Danns, Desegregating Chicago’s Public Schools: Policy Implementation, Politics, and Protest, 1965–1985 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

  98. 98.

    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): 64–75, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-007-0078-2. See also Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists.

  99. 99.

    William H. Freivogel, “40 Years After Ruling, City Schools Are Failing; Some Students Opt Out; Others Have No Choice,” (article excerpt), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 15, 1994, https://www.questia.com/newspaper/1P2-32872627/40-years-after-ruling-city-schools-are-failing-some.

  100. 100.

    Elisa Crouch, “Impending Closure of Beaumont High Tells a Larger Story,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 17, 2013, http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/impending-closure-of-beaumont-high-tells-a-larger-story/article_b5e3bff0-ca1a-531c-93d4-d3e33a1e5ed4.html.

  101. 101.

    See Dale Singer interview with author, June 4, 1014; also see Suzanne Eckes, “Brown at 50: Is There Any Reason to Celebrate?” Equity and Excellence in Education 37, no. 3 (2004): 219–226. Although Eckes does not specifically refer to St. Louis, her argument that American schools have resegregated since the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education is applicable to this research.

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    Hope C. Rias

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Rias, H.C. (2019). With Justice and Equality for Some…. In: St. Louis School Desegregation. Historical Studies in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04248-6_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04248-6_4

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