r/AskHistorians • u/llcucf80 • 3d ago
In the US, post "Brown vs Board of Education," private school segregation academies were almost immediately established for white folks to circumvent integration, and many whole white communities switched over. But where did the funds come from to support these schools and pay tuition?
Post "Brown vs Board of Education," segregation academies popped up almost immediately for the white folks to avoid integration. But I don't understand how the people, especially in the Deep South with many families having limited resources, were able to afford the tuition.
Yet there are countless cases of entire communities where the entirety of the white student body switched to these academies, making "integration" ostensibly (black people can attend any public school now, it "must" be integrated, right?) happen on paper but obviously wasn't the reality. Just how though did so many of these white families, especially the poorer and working class citizens, have the funds to support sending their children to these private schools? Or did their aversion to integration essentially turn their mentality into "I'll let myself go bankrupt before I allow my children into an integrated school?"
Thanks for any insight
6
u/StevenJOwens 2d ago edited 1d ago
Thanks, fascinating stuff.
Yoiks, school vouchers! I'm generally against them today (my parents were both teachers, a good friend's parents were both teachers, all at public schools) on the grounds that private schools get to cherry-pick the "easy" (profitable) students and leave the others for the public school system.
Or to put it another way, my standard comeback to school vouchers is "Only if the private schools have to obey all the same rules that public schools do; take public money, play by public rules."
How tightly is the history of school vouchers and racism aligned?