White Flight: The Strategies, Ideology, and Legacy
of Segregationists in Atlanta
Kevin Kruse, Princeton University
Presentation Sections:
Overview:
On November 3, 2005, Dr. Kevin Kruse of Princeton University's
History Department spoke at Emory University about several themes developed in his
book White Flight (2005), a study of segregationists' strategies and ideologies in
Atlanta. White Flight argues that the movement of whites out of southern cities
from the 1940s through the 1970s was part of a broader political withdrawal prompted
by the civil rights movement, and that the roots of modern southern conservatism can
be found in this confrontation.
Video:
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Part 1 (5:30 min.)
Kruse discusses Atlanta's reputation for "moderation"
in race relations in the 1950s and 1960s. Public school desegregation
in the city in 1961 arrived with a lack of violence unusual in the
South. Atlanta's segregationists articulated new rationales for
white resistance and white supremacy. What were "segregationists'
rights?" How did Atlanta segregationists understand themselves?
How did they justify racial discrimination? How did "freedom of
association" become a segregationist rallying cry?
Maps: Black Population: Atlanta and Vicinity, 1940-1970 |
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Part 2 (2:32 min.)
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White Atlantans used "freedom of association" as a
defense of segregated schools. Georgia segregationist politicians adopted
the "freedom of association" strategy. |
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Part 3 (5:52 min.)
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White parents used "freedom of association" as a means
to escape the looming deadline of August 1961 for Atlanta school
desegregation. The city's school board, fearing white flight, proposed
a "freedom of choice" plan that made it difficult for black students
to transfer to white schools. In 1964, the Atlanta School Board,
responding to federal court rulings, increased the pace of desegregation.
White parents quickly withdrew their children as formerly white
schools integrated. |
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Part 4 (8:25 min.)
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White flight. The rapid growth of Atlanta private
schools as a refuge for segregationists. Many private academies
with religious affiliations which had once counseled acceptance
of desegregation found it hard to practice what they had been preaching.
Kruse examines the response of Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians;
The King family and the "Lovett Crisis." |
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Part 5 (6:00 min.)
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Throughout the 1960s, whites increasingly abandoned
the Atlanta public schools. A 1973 "compromise" failed to stem the
white flight, both from the schools and from the city. White "suburban
secessionism" in the name of the "right of association" defined
the growth of counties such as Cobb and Gwinnett. |
Excerpts from Question and Answer Session:
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Part 1 (1:30 min.)
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A
new generation of the Republican Party seizes upon the politics
of suburban secession. |
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Part 2 (1:10 min.)
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Alanta's
black population dynamic and the earlier engagement with issues
of desegregation there as compared with northern cities. |
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Part 3 (1:43 min.)
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State
laws regarding the expansion of city limits affect white school
flight. Atlanta contrasted with Charlotte, North Carolina. |
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Part 4 (1:20 min.)
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The
emergence of southern suburban Republican power in the U.S. Congress
in the 1990s as an expression of privatized white flight. |
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Part 5 (1:53 min.)
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A
second wave of white flight now taking place from the increasingly
racially mixed Atlanta suburbs to the whiter exurbs. |
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Part 6 (1:25 min.)
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As
public spaces desegregate in the city, and later in the suburbs,
many white voters, refuse to support bond issues for parks, golf
courses, recreational facilities. |
About the Presenter:
Kevin
Kruse is a scholar of the political, social, and urban/suburban history
of twentieth century America with particular interest in the making of
modern conservatism. Focused on conflicts over race, rights, and religion,
he also studies the postwar South and modern suburbia. Raised in Nashville,
Tennessee, he attended the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
graduating in 1994. He earned a Ph.D. in history at Cornell University
in 2000 and joined the Princeton History Department the same year. His
first book, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
(2005), argues that the movement of whites out of southern cities from
the 1940s through the 1970s was part of a broader political withdrawal
prompted by the civil rights movement, and that the roots of modern southern
conservatism can be found in this confrontation. He is coeditor with Thomas
Sugrue of The New Suburban History (2005), an innovative collection
looking at the history of postwar suburbia in America. Currently, Professor
Kruse is working on a new book on the origins of the Religious Right in
American politics, from the 1950s through the 1980s.
Presentation Sections:
