The Southern Case for School SegregationKilpatrick, James Jackson
History
The Southern Case for School Segregation
Kilpatrick, James Jackson
African Americans -- Segregation; Segregation -- Southern States
Otto Klineberg has attempted to dismiss all the findings: “Until
and unless the _same_ education is given to both races, comparisons
will be unfair.” But it manifestly is impossible to give the _same_
education to any two groups. All that one can do is to provide the
same textbooks, the same teaching aids, teachers with the same degree
of education, and physical facilities generally comparable--but even
then, identity of total educational opportunity could not possibly
be achieved. The various tests now being administered in school
systems across the country are as fair and objective as competent
psychologists and educators can make them; and the bleak, undeniable
fact, confirmed repeatedly in school districts both North and South,
is that colored children regularly score at lower levels than the
white children of their communities. Thoughtful students of the
difficult problem before the South will comprehend what the evidence
means in terms of the real and practical obstacles to welding
together white and Negro schools in rural areas below the Potomac.
Other very real difficulties merit reflection also. The disputations
of social scientists cannot be considered in a vacuum, nor the
findings of achievement tests treated as so many punched cards for
an IBM machine. These are _children_ we are concerned with, white
and Negro alike, and the fact is (I do not argue the goodness or
badness of the fact; I merely cite its existence) that white and
Negro children in the South have many quite different educational
requirements. The essentially dual and separate society of the South
cannot be dissolved overnight by court decree. For years to come in
the South, the practice of law and medicine, the handling of banking
and finance, the sale of stocks and bonds, the management of large
retail and wholesale enterprises, and the administration of commerce
and government will continue to be overwhelmingly restricted to white
persons. This is not to say that many able Negroes are not engaged
in these fields now; they are, and their number is increasing, but
they are conspicuous exceptions. In rural areas especially, where
professional and business opportunities naturally are severely
limited, the realities of adult opportunity are even more striking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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