Weird. That said, busing and the breakup of local schools was one of the worst ideas ever. It added to tensions rather than reducing them.
But it wasn’t really about race. I worked in a public school in San Francisco that was in a middle class white area, and then suddenly they began busing in black children from one of the worst, most depressed areas of the city. These kids immediately set to beating up and robbing the white kids on the playground, even under the eyes of the teachers. So the white parents then began withdrawing their kids and sending them to private schools.
But one of the black teachers I worked with said the very truth: it wasn’t about race, it was simply that you couldn’t possibly put kids who were from single mother, almost-illiterate, drug-infested homes, were surrounded by crime and survived by being violent, into a normal middle class environment.
This was true, because while most of the kids from the neighborhood were white, there were some black students...who were often the focus of attacks by the bused in blacks, because they were considered “soft” and “wanting to be white.” They actually just wanted to work hard, get good grades, get into college and live a good life, but that was outside the scope of the bused-in group.
So in my teacher friend’s opinion, it was a cultural clash where the under-class meets the rest of the world, not about race. And she was absolutely right.
bump
I was a student in a (what once was) a rural community that had to undergo forced “desegregation” where they bused in kids from the cities out to us starting with my Jr. High year (now middle school)
Before the busing the school campuses were open - before class and during lunch I could go to the bookstore (staffed by students) or to the school’s library which were situated next to the cafeteria. Seating was open.
Within 2 years the Jr. High was completely locked down and seats were assigned in the cafeteria.
By the time I got to the high school (which used to allow eating lunch on the green areas or even LEAVING SCHOOL during lunch to grab a bite at the local burger places) - they had already locked down and then continued to further restrict our liberties and freedoms until we effectively were being educated in a prison.
The bused in kids didn’t WANT to be there either as busing times were nearly hour long commutes plus it made extra curricular activities difficult for them to get to and from outside of busing. So they didn’t integrate that way, either. Of course in things like band, they could easily get out of practices without punishment - of course those of us who lived in the area HAD to appear or be punished.
It was just bad all around.
Bkmk