Reimagining Urban Education: Civil Rights, the Columbus School District, and the Limits of Reform
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Reimagining Urban Education: Civil Rights, the Columbus School District, and the Limits of Reform THESIS Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Patrick Ryan Potyondy, B.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2012 Master's Examination Committee: Steven Conn, Advisor Daniel Amsterdam Kevin Boyle Copyright by Patrick Ryan Potyondy 2012 Abstract Local civil rights organizations of Columbus, Ohio, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Columbus Urban League, and the Teenage Action Group, served as the engine for urban educational reform in the mid 1960s. Activists challenged the Columbus School District to create equality of educational opportunity for its black residents. But civil rights groups ran up against a socially conservative city and school district that had little interest in dismantling the unequal neighborhood school system. Racial tensions ran high as African Americans faced persistent discrimination in employment, access to public accommodations, housing, and schooling. Frustrated by an intransigent district, which spurned even moderate reforms proposed by the NAACP and continued with its unequal school construction policy, the Columbus Urban League presented a radically democratic proposal in 1967. The document reimagined the image of the city by simultaneously challenging both racial and class-based barriers, primarily through the concept of the educational park—large K-12 campuses consisting of centralized resources and thousands of students. The school board snubbed this new civil rights initiative as they had with all previous proposals and instead commissioned a report by the Ohio State University in 1968. The OSU Advisory Commission on Problems Facing the Columbus Public Schools presented incremental, targeted reforms to specific issues only and thus perpetuated the district’s traditional resistance to reform. In essence, by drawing on ii legitimized social science professionals, the district manufactured support to maintain the city’s historical unequal school system. In the end, although Columbus was a relatively economically stable city and did not experience the deindustrialization of its rustbelt brethren, meaningful school reform proved impossible despite the best efforts of several civil rights organizations. iii For my whole family. iv Acknowledgments The generous people and policies at the Ohio Historical Society helped me procure more material than I thought possible. Similarly, the libraries and archives at the Ohio State University put a wide array of resources right at my fingertips. Without support for public institutions like these, history and teaching would not be possible. As with most things, teachers deserve most of the credit, particularly: Mr. Tom Michoski, Dr. Peter Boag, Dr. Jennifer Bair, Dr. Ralph Mann, and Dr. Cheryl Higashida. Without the long chats with Joe Arena, the guidance of Tyran Steward, the insight of Delia Fernandez, the editing of Mark Boonshoft, and the students in Dr. Kevin Boyle’s writing seminar, this thesis wouldn’t have been written. My advisor Dr. Steven Conn pushed the thesis to be more rigorous, relevant, and coherent. Dr. Daniel Amsterdam offered his expertise and counsel throughout. And Dr. Kevin Boyle has helped me to think and write like a historian. Finally, my biggest acknowledgement is reserved for my family: for Eric and Lena who supported and challenged me; for my folks who guided me; and, especially, for my life- partner Amber who, more than anyone else, made me the person I am today. v Vita 2009................................................................B.A. History, English, and Sociology, the University of Colorado at Boulder 2010 to present ...............................................Graduate student, History, The Ohio State University 2010 to present ..............................................Graduate Teaching Association, Department of History, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: History vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Vita ..................................................................................................................................... vi List of Maps ..................................................................................................................... viii Introduction: Reform’s Possibilities and Impossibilities .................................................... 1 Growth in an Atmosphere of Racial Exclusion in a Non-Deindustrializing City ............... 6 Educational Reform Frustrated: Civil Rights Activism Meets District Resistance, 1963-1966 ......................................................................................................................... 21 The Choice: Systemic Democratic Radicalism or District-Approved Incrementalism .... 33 Grand Reform that Failed to Pass: Civil Rights Proposal Spurned .................................. 53 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 58 vii List of Maps Map 1. ............................................................................................................................... 11 Map 2. ............................................................................................................................... 13 Map 3. ............................................................................................................................... 14 Map 4 ................................................................................................................................ 15 Map 5. ............................................................................................................................... 16 Map 6 ................................................................................................................................ 17 viii Introduction: Reform’s Possibilities and Impossibilities In August of 1967—four months after the Columbus Urban League proposed its six-point school reform plan centered on the radically democratic educational park— Reverend Larry McCollough of Mount Zion Baptist Church in the Near East Side told the Columbus Board of Education, “If you seven white people who compose the school board think Negroes are going to accept your policies, you should be reminded of Stokely Carmichael’s statement of, ‘Hell no, they ain’t gonna.’” Gene Robinson of the United Student Action Committee supported Rev. McCollough saying, “One way or another, black power will prevail.” When Dr. Watson Walker, the only black member of the board responded that he could not be mistaken for being white, Rev. McCollough interrupted him: “Then act like a Negro and stand up for us.” A large crowd then stormed out of the public meeting after someone yelled, “Black people, let’s get out of here and unite.” Shouts of “go back to Georgia” and “go to hell whites” mingled with the chanting of “black power!” A self-labeled “angry white mother,” Jocelyn Ritter, a representative from the Committee of Columbus School Parents, tried to calm the board. The district had nothing to fear from her and the other white mothers, she said; it was only those “others” who were causing trouble.1 Two weeks later, the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) picketed the board’s 1 David Cain, “School Policy Protested / Shouts of ‘Black Power’ Accompany Walkout,” Columbus Dispatch (CD), 16 August 1967. 1 downtown meeting because of its lack of action on their moderate proposals for limited busing or the Urban League’s plan. “There are so many people involved and some of them want to go to extremes,” NAACP educational chairman Waldo Tyler warned.2 The Columbus Urban League’s proposal “Quality Integrated Education for Columbus, Ohio”—published in April of 1967—could not have arrived at a worse time. It came at the tail end of nearly a decade’s worth of heated battles between civil rights activists and the local school district. This thesis tells the story of the plan’s genesis and its eventual failure. In so doing, it adds to the literature on civil rights activism and educational reform in the 1960s by examining both in a mid-to-large Midwestern city that has not received adequate scholarly attention.3 The struggle over educational reform in Columbus took place in a city shaped by racism, exclusion, and neglect. The Columbus School District experienced steady growth throughout the 1960s, which pushed the board of education to its limit in trying to keep up with new construction and expansion. Board members avoided questions of 2 “NAACP to Picket Board,” CD, 2 September 1967. 3 For an introduction into the literature on the urban crisis spanning from the 1950s through the 1980s see: Arnold R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983); John Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal: Urban Planning in Philadelphia, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987); Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s,