University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2014 Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for Equal Education After Jim Crow Luci Vaden University of South Carolina - Columbia Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Vaden, L.(2014). Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for Equal Education After Jim Crow. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2747 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for Equal Education After Jim Crow by Luci Vaden Bachelor of Arts University of Tennessee, 2005 Master of Arts University of Tennessee, 2006 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2011 ___________________________________________ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2014 Accepted by: Patricia Sullivan, Major Professor Kent Germany, Committee Member Lawrence Glickman, Committee Member Bobby Donaldson, Committee Member Blair Kelley, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Luci Vaden, 2014 All Rights Reserved. ii Abstract “Before the Corridor of Shame: The African American Fight for Equal Education After Jim Crow” analyzes how African American public school students in South Carolina used direct action protest to demand the implementation of quality, desegregated public education in the 1970s. Students built off of the legacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which empowered the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to withhold federal funds from school districts that practiced overt segregation and became the mechanism by which the federal government could force states to desegregate. As a result, most South Carolina schools desegregated by 1970 and technically met federal civil rights standards, retaining federal school funding. In reality, many white school district officials and communities found ways to manipulate or circumvent new federal regulations while maintaining racially discriminatory policies, and federal and state authorities did not have the laws, policies, or political gumption to adequately deal with post-desegregation obstructions. This dissertation examines the problems that the first generation of black students attending totally desegregated schools faced. School districts closed majority-black schools to achieve desegregation and enrolled black students into previously all-white institutions that disrespected the history and identity of former majority-black institutions. Districts compounded black student and community frustrations when they fired and demoted many black teachers, administrators, and coaches, frequently replacing them for less qualified white candidates. Southern school districts tracked black students into lower level academic classes, which promoted iii segregated classrooms and racial isolation within newly desegregated schools, and subjected black students to harsher discipline policies. Many white residents in majority- black school districts abandoned South Carolina’s desegregated schools launching a prolific private school movement in the state, but simultaneously worked to control majority-black school districts, often funneling public resources into private, segregation academies. In the face of white resistance, black South Carolinians, civil rights activists, and a myriad of civil rights organizations once again inherited the burden of ensuring that their local and state governments implemented federally mandated desegregation regulations. From 1969-1979, black student protests emerged in dozens of communities across the state. Students boycotted classes, presented grievances, and petitioned state and federal authorities to demand that local school districts provide better education to black students. This dissertation asserts that black activists took advantage of growing state and federal oversight, and contributed to new desegregation regulations by providing accounts of the post- problems and discrimination they faced in their communities. By the late 1970s, South Carolina legislation regulated almost every component of education previously left to the jurisdiction of local school boards and the federal government revised many of its desegregation regulations. African American students, parents, and activists of the 1970s built on the legacy of black civil rights activism, established from the early twentieth century in South Carolina and across the South, and employed direct action protest to demand quality, integrated public education in South Carolina. Black South Carolinians achieved some successes and also witnessed many setbacks, but they continued to fight, placing quality education at the center of that struggle. iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ................................................................................................................ vi Introduction- “Like a Heavy Thunderstorm in Full Force”: Collective Black Student Activism and the Battle for Quality Public Education After Jim Crow ............................. 1 Chapter 1- “There Was A Fire Here No Water Was Gonna Put Out’: Black South Carolinians Continued Fight for Quality, Desegregated Public Education ........................ 8 Chapter 2- “If You Can Keep a Man From Getting an Education: You Can Manage Him”: Victoria DeLee and Desegregating Schools for African and Native American Students in Dorchester, South Carolina.......................................................................... 64 Chapter 3- High School Students, The Catholic, and the Struggle for Integrated Education in Rock Hill, South Carolina 1970-1972 ..................................................... 120 Chapter 4-“They Want to Decide what Philosophy is Best for Our Children, but they Have Already Said it is Not Good Enough for Theirs:” Demanding a Voice in Public Education after 1965 in Orangeburg, South Carolina ................................................... 147 Chapter 5-“Black Folks Got White Folks All Shaked Up Now:” Collective Black Student Activism in Calhoun County A Decade After Desegregation .......................... 188 Epilogue-“They Should March Until Victory is Won:” South Carolina’s Dual Public School System Sixty Years after Brown ...................................................................... 222 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 241 Endnotes ..................................................................................................................... 245 v List of Figures Figure 1.1 Illustration from South Carolina Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities ............................................................................................................. 51 Figure 1.2 Illustration from South Carolina Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities ............................................................................................................. 52 Figure 1.3 Illustration from South Carolina Handbook of Student Rights and Responsibilities ............................................................................................................. 53 Figure 2.1 Four Holes School Children Gathered in the Four Holes Community, Courtesy of John Reynolds ........................................................................................................... 65 Figure 2.2 Four Holes Students Gathered at Freedom School ........................................ 96 Figure 2.3 Students Learn at Four Holes Freedom School.............................................. 96 Figure 2.4 Young Four Holes Students at Freedom School ............................................ 97 Figure 2.5 Four Holes Freedom School ......................................................................... 97 Figure 2.6 Four Holes Children Swim in Nearby Four Holes Lake ................................ 98 Figure 2.7 Four Holes Student Play Basketball in Four Holes Community ..................... 99 Figure 2.8 Meeting of parents and community leaders in Four Holes ........................... 100 Figure 5.1 Map of Calhoun County ............................................................................. 191 Figure 5.2 Picture of students studying at an abandoned Masonic Lodge in Calhoun County during the boycott ........................................................................................... 198 Figure 5.3 Picture of Oscar Means (left) and Issac Williams (right) during a rally at Bethlehem Methodist Church, November 1976 ........................................................... 204 Figure 5.4 Picture of Protest in St. Matthews on November, 12, 1976 .......................... 206 Figure 5.4 Picture of St. Matthews High School classroom in the midst of the boycott on December 3, 1976 ....................................................................................................... 208 vi Introduction: “Like a Heavy Thunderstorm in Full Force”: Collective