Desegregation in Knoxville, Tennessee : a case

Desegregation in Knoxville, Tennessee: A Case Study investigates the etTorts of a school district to desegregate its schools for the second time. The first desegregation attempt in 1959-1974 left several racially identifiable schools intact as well as inequities in staff and administration, curriculum and facilities.A second attempt begun in 1989 followed a complaint from the National Association for the Advancementof Colored People (NAACP) to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Despite mixed community reactions, theBoard of Education submitted a desegregation plan to OCR in full compliance with Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The key component of the 1991 plan was the institution of magnet programs in six inner-city schools.This study reconstructed the events of the 1989-1996 desegregation process and the implementation of a desegregation plan. The evidence strongly suggested that the Superintendent of Education, theChairman of the County Commission, a Board of Education member, and the agencies they represented,were the most influential participants in the process. The official solution to desegregation, the creation of several magnet programs, represents a compromise by each of the major participants. The findings also indicate that the tensions and conflicts included the interplay of (a) racism, (b) classism (prejudice or discrimination based on class), (c) individual ideologies, and (d) an on-going power struggle between two government agencies, the Board of Education and the County Commission. The role of other community participants, although important, tended to follow or to react to one or more of the three leading participants.The findings have implications for future analyses of desegregation. Despite the time, energy and resources invested in the desegregation effort, the racial balance between predominantly white and black schools has not altered to any significant degree. The number of students involved in the magnet program is low, approximately 783 students or 1.5% of the total student population. Although magnet programs are steps in the right direction, they compromise the issue of desegregation. Such programs are at best a partial solution to segregation. In the case of Knoxville, the programs need to be dramatically expanded to have a major impact on segregation patterns. Given the intransigence of segregation, additional studies of desegregation are needed. Such studies should include cities such as Knoxville where desegregation efforts have been attempted more than once.