Desegregation and the Public Schools - NYTimes.com

Desegregation and the Public Schools - NYTimes.com: In many northern cities, the 1974 United States Supreme Court decision Milliken v. Bradley killed any hopes of integrating the public schools. That ruling, involving Detroit and its suburbs, said that a mandatory plan to achieve integration by busing black children from Detroit across district lines to mainly white suburbs was unconstitutional. The result accelerated white flight to the suburbs, leaving the schools in urban centers even more segregated than they had been.

Most famously, this happened in Boston, where court-ordered integration resulted in a busing plan that wound up mainly moving children of color around the city. 

But busing had greater success in some places, particularly those where the plans were carried out countywide, reducing the chances of white flight. They included Louisville/Jefferson County, Raleigh/Wake County and Charlotte/Mecklenberg County. 

This week’s Retro Report video, “The Battle for Busing,” follows the story of the Charlotte/Mecklenberg district, which became a national model for racial integration for 30 years only to resegregate about a decade ago, after a court ruling lifted the mandatory integration plan.