"Bloody Sunday" stands out as a watershed event in the struggle for civil rights in the South. Six hundred civil rights marchers were beaten by state troopers and sheriffs deputies as they tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in March 1965. International outrage at such blatant displays of police brutality forced President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Selma is once again the setting for a battle that promises to have implications as serious for the future of race relations in the United States as "Bloody Sunday" did 25 years ago. And still the issue is power -- who has it and who wants it -- except that the social context this time is education.
Dr. Norwood Roussell, Selma's first black school superintendent, was fired on December 21, 1989, by the school board. The vote to dismiss Roussell was split along racial lines, with blacks voting to keep him and whites voting to get rid of him. The vote triggered a walkout by the four black school board members, daily demonstrations by both blacks and whites, a boycott of Selma's 11 public schools by black children, and a five-day sit-in at the high school by black parents. When classes resumed, Selma sheriffs deputies and Alabama state police surrounded the schools to ensure order.
"This is not a matter of my performance here," said Roussell. "This is a matter of who is going to be in control. Whites have final say on everything in the community -- including the schools."
Selma's 11 public schools are 70 percent black, yet its school board is controlled by whites, six to five. The school board members are appointed by the city council, which is controlled by whites, five to four. The city council and the school board are backed by powerful white Mayor Joseph T. Smitherman, who was mayor of Selma during "Bloody Sunday."
Whites on the Selma school board claim that Roussell was fired because of his "dictatorial" management style and low teacher morale. Blacks say that Roussell was fired for dismantling Selma's school tracking system, which provided college preparatory classes for whites but kept black children in less rigorous classes regardless of their academic ability. Before Roussell was hired in 1987, 90 percent of whites were in advanced classes compared to only three percent of blacks. Since then, black enrollment in advanced classes has jumped to 10 percent.
Tracking is a system in which students of equal ability are grouped together. Advocates say tracking makes teaching more efficient since the children are operating at similar intellectual levels. Critics say that tracking is a ruse used to maintain segregation within the same school.
I agree with the critics. But there's even more to it than that. Minority children, once placed within a track, tend to stay within that track throughout their school careers. And studies indicate that lower academic achievers do not hinder higher academic achievers. Being in the same learning environment, in fact, helps lower achievers. But being grouped among themselves, lower academic achievers are offered no incentive to do better.
WHITES HAVE HISTORICALLY REAPED the most benefits out of America's school systems. In case after case, when the racial balance of public schools shifted from mostly white to black or Hispanic, white parents often sent their kids to private schools, an option not available to most minority parents. Yet as the 21st century nears, education will be the sole route by which blacks and other minorities can gain real economic and political power.
Education reflects a society where money and power dictate who gets taught, what gets taught, what kind of an environment one is taught in, and how an individual is taught. Value judgments about individuals play as great a role in education, unfortunately, as genuine ability. And it is blacks and other minorities who have suffered the most.
A major reason behind minority parents' push for decentralization of school districts in New York in the late '60s, and Chicago in the late '80s -- where parents want control over school boards -- is to protect their vested interests. Properly equipped neighborhood schools -- with black teachers in majority black schools -- provide a cadre of educated black leaders and role models, particularly black males, that children can respect. These models provide incentives for young black adults to stay and invest in the community, laying the foundation for a solid political and economic base.
The dispute brewing in Selma is brewing in various degrees in Boston, Chicago, New York, and other urban areas where a large minority population exists. Education is where issues of race, class, culture, money, and power all intersect -- or clash. As we move further into the '90s, education will become this country's racial Pied Piper. Where education goes, the rest of the country is soon to follow.
Anthony A. Parker was assistant editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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