The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (z-lib.org).epub

six of the district’s elementary schools were over 95 percent African
American.
Schools in Richmond were segregated primarily because federal and local
housing policies had segregated the city itself. But Richmond school
officials took additional measures to ensure that African American children
did not attend the same school as white children. For example, the Peres
school, with a 93 percent black enrollment in 1967, was situated west of the
railroad tracks in a neighborhood that included three blocks that had
remained white. The school board carved the three-block strip out of the
Peres attendance zone and assigned students who lived there to attend the
all-white Belding school, across the railroad tracks.
The school that the Stevenson daughters attended, Verde Elementary in
unincorporated North Richmond, was west of the railroad tracks and not far
from the oil refinery. The school had originally been constructed in 1951 to
prevent black students from attending nearby schools in white
neighborhoods. Verde was still 99 percent African American in 1968 when it
became so overcrowded that the school district had to respond. Meanwhile
nearby schools in white neighborhoods had many empty seats as a growing
number of white families left Richmond for the suburbs. But instead of
allowing African American children to occupy those seats, the district
decided to build an addition to Verde. This was such an obvious attempt to
perpetuate segregation that civil rights groups sued. The trial judge ordered
integration and later told an interviewer that he had been offended by the
racially biased testimony of a school board member who defended the
district’s policy.
Instead of appealing the judge’s decision, the district agreed to a
desegregation plan that modified attendance zones. But before the policy
could be implemented, voters elected an anti-integration majority to the
school board, which then reneged on its commitment. Instead, it adopted a
voluntary program in which African American children could choose to
attend a predominantly white school. By 1980 only one in six black children
had done so. These were generally children with the most educationally
sophisticated and motivated parents. Their transfers left schools in
Richmond’s black neighborhoods with the most disadvantaged students,
those with the lowest academic performance and greatest behavioral
challenges. Even today, as low-income Hispanic families replace African