Notable Quotes #7: Rick Perstein describes Minneapolis Integration Backlash

[Congressman Clark MacGregor.]

An account of Minneapolis Congressman Clark MacGregor's role in maintaining school segregation from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland:

On August 9 [1966], the twelfth day of debate in the full House on the civil rights bill, a North Carolina congressman by the apt name of Basil Whitener introduced an amendment to moot Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outright. (Whitener had earlier whined of an amendment offering relief for Negroes injured or intimidated while voting. “Why cannot a person who is injured or intimidated be a white person for once?”). Georgia Republican Howard “Bo” Callaway played good cop, offering a more realistic substitute: “Nothing in this title shall be construed to authorize action by an department or agency to require the assignment of students to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance.”

Debate on the motion was called. There followed a shocking development. Back in the spring during House subcommittee hearings on the civil rights bill, northern Republicans with liberal records on race took turns offering their own states as models of the sort of biracial harmony that was possible in places where politicians didn’t demagogue on civil rights. Once of them was Clark MacGregor of Minneapolis, proudly noting that racial backlash over school integration was “not a factor in my part of the country.” But that had been in May. This was August. Minneapolis had just suffered a riot. Word subsequently got out that in the riot’s wake the mayor had implored the city’s business establishment to create at least 145 new jobs for impoverished black teenagers. Evans and Novak reported what happened next: “The mayor had never experienced such a city-wide outbreak of hostility – phone calls, telegrams, and letters by the scores – as hit him after he decided to respond to the riot with a promise of jobs and only limited police actions.”

And on the floor of the House, Clark MacGregor now went on a Dixie-style tear in support of his Georgia colleague: “If this amendment is defeated, we will be putting our stamp of approval on administrative action to destroy the neighborhood schools… Mr. Chairman, it is not only the Southern states which have been affected.”

The Speaker called the vote. The Callaway amendment passed. A new national panic had burst to the surface: that the federal government would deliver the chaos of rioting urban slums to your own quiet, bucolic neighborhood via yellow bus, in the guise of combating “de facto” school segregation.

Small Town Sprawl in Pine City

My friend Nate wrote a great post today about how small cities and towns often build new schools out in farm fields on the edge of town.

He looked at the new high school being built in his home town of Mankato as an example. Here's the punchline:

It’s widely accepted that many schools built-in the last 20 years were deliberately designed to discourage walking. What’s puzzling is that more people weren’t concerned about this? The freedom to roam was one of the most rewarding experiences of growing up. It teaches us not only navigational skills, but personal responsibility. Children need to experience this.

It might be forgivable if student walkers were overlooked, or just an afterthought. That’s not the case. They were specifically considered and the general consensus was to ignore them. It was aconscious decision to save money on initial land costs.

On bicycle trips around Minnesota and Wisconsin, I've noticed these sprawl schools a lot. Probably the worst one I've seen recently is in Pine City, Minnesota (pop, 3000).

The school is only two years old, and located in a farm field on the edge of town. Pine City has a lovely Main Street, but it's a mile and a half away along old US Highway 61.

[High school to the heart of town.]

I always wonder why civic leaders choose not to put the high school in the middle of town, and I wondered it again as I went past the school.

But then on my way North, I saw the brand new County Courthouse complex, an even larger sprawling complex even farther away from downtown out on the other far edge of town. The courthouse complex is literally surrounded by empty lots and a freeway onramp.

Compare this to the days when courthouses used to be the absolute center of a town, and kids walking to schools was a common sight. All I can think is that whoever makes decision in Pine City must really hate where they live, or love parking lots, or have a good friend with some land to sell.

[Courthouse to the heart of town.]