The Year of the Bus

This is the Year of the Bus in the old capital of the Confederacy, the year thousands of Richmond schoolchildren are being taken for rides in quest of racial balance. But if results are measured against objectives, it may turn out to be the Year of the Bust.

Desegregation—not to be confused with integration—arrived in Richmond ten years ago. It came quietly, without bricks thrown or buses overturned or classrooms disrupted. Under freedom of choice it increased steadily year by year until, in 1969, the smallest proportion of Negro students in any Richmond school was 4 per cent. The “white only” school, then, had gone the way of trolley cars and 5 cent ice-cream cones. But because the majority of Richmond’s school-age children are black, there are naturally large Negro residential concentrations, and hence some heavily black schools. And the judiciary has decided, neighborhoods or no, that there must be “no black schools, no white schools, just schools.” No school may be “racially identifiable.” The system must be “unitary.” Strike the balance and free will be hanged!

RH

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Robert G. Holland

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This is the Year of the Bus in the old capital of the Confederacy, the year thousands of Richmond schoolchildren are being taken for rides in quest of racial balance. But if results are measured against objectives, it may turn out to be the Year of the Bust.

Desegregation—not to be confused with integration—arrived in Richmond ten years ago. It came quietly, without bricks thrown or buses overturned or classrooms disrupted. Under freedom of choice it increased steadily year by year until, in 1969, the smallest proportion of Negro students in any Richmond school was 4 per cent. The “white only” school, then, had gone the way of trolley cars and 5 cent ice-cream cones. But because the majority of Richmond’s school-age children are black, there are naturally large Negro residential concentrations, and hence some heavily black schools. And the judiciary has decided, neighborhoods or no, that there must be “no black schools, no white schools, just schools.” No school may be “racially identifiable.” The system must be “unitary.” Strike the balance and free will be hanged!