Jackson Jambalaya

Before they had to consolidate, families could choose either school. So every black child at Eastside could have gone to CHS. For numerous reasons, their families chose Eastside.

Hopefully Bayou and PDS have sent kind thank you notes to the federal government.

School desegregation by busing was the biggest civil rights failure the federal government ever imposed. Even the 'The Squad' hated it. This was all done by the liberal Democrats. Other failures was the great War on Poverty. Now, you have a permanent welfare class. Another liberal failure. That why I will vote republican.

Cleveland Ms. has long been considered the "best" town in the delta. Goodbye Cleveland. Look at the economic devastation to Greenville after this type of action was imposed around 1968. A riverboat captain recently told a friend of mine, after stopping in the port of Greenville, several people asked "Why did we stop here?" That wasn't the case in the 60's.

The more things change-the more they stay the same.

The population of public school white students had already been declining for 20+ years despite what may appear to be slow growth prior to 2013 in the graphics KF presents. Kalish (not Kalick) himself notes that in the next to last paragraph of the selection provided. The longer term declining trend line for public school whites is actually much steeper than presented.

As of 2017 Cleveland has lost nearly -25% of its population since 1990. Before the trolls that haunt JJ emerge with today's tired littany of white hate they'd be wise to dig deeper into Cleveland's population losses. Doing so will discover those exiting the city are black also.

Ellis Turnage achieved the white subjugation he sought. He'd ask the Feds to curtail freedom of movement too if he thought he could get away with it.

The U.S. Constitution does not mention "public schools."

Home-schooling or private schools! We don't need the government teaching our babies PC BS and revisionist history, nor should they have to be in the same classroom with thugs.

Both of these schools were desegragated for years now... all they did was segregate the schools 100% now. Way to go. It's being me why people say the schools weren't mixed already.

Uh huh. Look at the total number of black students I posted. How much did it change?

@ 9:52, you are exactly right! All of the crap forced on this country over the last 50-60 years by liberal democrats has been a colossal failure. Yes, the civil rights movement needed to happen, but the government programs that went along with it have only created a new set of problems that will likely never be solved. If poverty has not been eliminated in this country after countless trillions have been spent on it, then it won't ever be. And the public school system will continue to deteriorate with each passing generation.

The damn thing went haywire at the beginning in 1954 when the NAACP lawyers found themselves in a no-win situation if they argued for increased state funding and support for Black schools instead of integration as a solution
to the problem of separate but UNequal public schools. Quality education WAS possible at all black schools. Marshall and the other NAACP lawyers had themselves received quality education at segregated schools, but those schools and their students were victimized and still not treated nearly on par with predominantly white schools and the lawyers had to find a winning strategy to defeat Plessy vs Ferguson which approved segregation and allowed Southern racists to starve black education. Integration became the prevailing strategy and the buzzword of the civil rights movement although most Black people only wanted equal treatment. As time went on any talk of all-black or all-white anything was met with the opposition of the courts and civil rights organizations which dared not admit any circumstance which would appear to align them with the racist segregationists they defeated in 1954. 65 years later courts are still unable to craft solutions outside the ineffective box of imposed integration although nobody, black or white, thinks it is working. The real problem was always discrimination and sadly the inflexible way it was addressed created new problems.

Obviously the de facto apartheid townships will no longer be tolerated. In order to return to the good ole days the return to Jim Crow laws will be necessary. Are there no Vardamans and Bilbos and Wallaces to be found these days?

As someone who went thru it in December of 1970 in Jackson both white and black couldn't go to their school across the street from their house. I just wish that North of Tenn. that that would have had to bus.

All you have to do is look in the mirror Rod

10:51 There will be no return to Jim Crow laws. They were crude and are now out-dated and stupid. There are plenty of Vardamans, Bilbos, and Wallaces around these days, they are just more politically correct, which makes them more effective. If those gentlemen you mentioned were around today, they would be the jokes of the republican party.

Curious, what are the consequences for Vanderbilt’s Claire Smrekar and her failed projections?

Anytime someone claims to do something "for the children" you can be assured that the children are the last consideration.

Amen 10:57 am I went through that, too. However, what was done to west and south Jackson was not done immediately to the Northside. Word was that the legislatures took care of their kids at the time. Prep as still in its infancy. JA as a HS did not exist. Follow the path of school destruction from there.

Cleveland High School exists no longer. The Wildcats exist no longer. Black and gold school colors no longer exist. The trophy cases and huge senior class framed photos no longer exist. All the plaques, street and building designations and signs have been jerked down, as with the removal of statues in other locations throughout the South.

Cleveland High School was first integrated in school year 65-66, but as the article above says, 'That wasn't good enough for the Justice Department'. It wanted Mo Justice. And got it.

Cleveland remains the only town in the Delta that has not either had a black mayor, black municipal administration, black board of supervisors, economic disaster or a combination of the four.

There is not a single boarded up window in downtown Cleveland. Cleveland has the only grammy museum east of California and has a brand new multi-story hotel downtown. The railroad track is there but the train no longer comes through. The town is full of real nice places to eat, shop, party, drink and gather. The town is also full of churches and has a university, busy sidewalks and a competent police department.

The US Justice Department, over the past fifty five years, has done all within its power to average out, desegregate and melt all the crayons in the box into a brown result. If the federal government could require an equal mix of black and white living on either side of Sharpe Avenue, it would do that. And here we are.

Does Cleveland have crime, sloth and blight? Yes, some, but not nearly that found in every other Delta town. Look at Greenwood, Greenville, Clarksdale, Indianola, Leland, Shaw and all the many smaller town ... you see vacant storefronts, boarded up windows, people walking about up to no good or lounging around drinking beer concealed in brown sacks. Not in Cleveland you don't. And Cleveland will survive in spite of the federal government.

Was a 50-50 black-white split at Cleveland High School good enough? No, not for the federal government.

Could it be that the "white flight" isn't really about race, and the families that pulled their children out of the new school just didn't want them influenced by the "culture" prevalent among those at the former East Side High School?

Poor people of any color create poor schools. The good but poor ones are struggling to survive, while the bad ones prey on those that can't afford to or just haven't yet moved.

11:51 AM - I agree that all of this is more about culture vs. color. But that culture is readily identified by color.

Whose fault was the French revolution and the terror it brought? Was it the bloated aristocracy that robbed and starved the peasants until they could no longer stand it? Or was it the ignorant peasants who launched a terrorist bloodbath against anyone associated with aristocratic lifestyle? Depends on which side of the track you live. The only thing for certain is that it would not end well. Cleveland MS. circa 1950. Cleveland Ms. 2019

11:46 You are a college town. get over your greatness....If you didn't have the fighting okra you wouldn't be jack squat and look like Marks.

Everyone's in a bad spot here as a result of history, including the actions of our government.

There is no solution. Whites and blacks do not generally gravitate towards each other in any aspect. We are different and we do not like each other.

We will continue down the path of white's being punished until those that become weary, decide no more and revolt either at the ballot box, or the battlefield. While in the meantime more money is wasted, lives are ruined and everyone suffers.

12:58, your knowledge of history is flawed. The "ignorant peasants" were only tools used the Jacobins (who were primarily bourgeoisie, not peasants, and who stirred the pot of hatred against the aristocracy and Christians) to launch the terrorist bloodbath. US circa 1950, US circa perhaps 2024.

Call Benny, he will help.

Good riddance if they don't like it maybe they should move, those academy schools dumb it down so everyone is a star student.

12:58 No, my knowledge of the French includes the contributions of Robespierre and the Jacobins, but as my biology teacher used to say, "today we examine the frog, tomorrow we dissect him".

My point is missed.

How good are academy schools outside of Prep, JA, and MRA? They seem no better than most middle to lower end public schools depending on who I have spoken to about them.

3:18 why do you think Mississippi has such a thriving Jr College and lower College system. It ain't just because of JUCO football. Most can't qualify for the big three public or private colleges.

America, love it or leave it.

Why are white people so afraid of being the minority?

3:18. I don’t think you can include JA and MRA in the same sentence as Prep. Basing my comment on SAT and ACT scores compared with Prep. For that matter, MRA and JA don’t compare with Madison Central and some of the better public schools in the state in that regard. Agree with your thoughts on most other academies. JA and MRA May be better than most.

12:58, I suspect that whatever "bloated aristocracy that robbed and starved the peasants" of Cleaveland do not live on the other side of the tracks in Cleaveland.

@5:27
You and Lamumba and AOC and Kaepernick can have it. My family just submitted our immigration paperwork for Poland. They actually want our kind and want to protect our future! Better than Mississippi.

"You and Lamumba and AOC and Kaepernick can have it. My family just submitted our immigration paperwork for Poland. They actually want our kind and want to protect our future! Better than Mississippi."

Goodness gracious! Lumumba, AOC, Kaepernick, immigration, Poland, and Mississippi, along with the implied racial divide, all in a discussion about the failure of a Federal judge's misguided and failed attempt to further an unneeded desegregation in a deep south school.

That sets up a joke in the which the laugh potential for those ready to see humor is matched only by the offense potential for those ready to be offended. Trust me, it is both wildly funny and offensive - we're talking making Bob Saget, Gilbert Gottfried, Richard Pryor, Ricky Gervase and Redd Foxx simultaneously choke with laughter and blush crimson funny and offensive. Since even very few of the words individually would come remotely close to approval (and every sentence on own would get a broadcaster's license permanently revoked), I won't bother to submit the fully Monty. I will however invite readers to use their imagination should they happen to be in possession of one.

Grew up there and went to public school (CHS). WASP. CHS was segregated and roughly 50-50 when I attended. East Side was 100% AA. No real racial issues other than East Side's boosters were not as generous as CHS's. This caused resentment in East Side parents, which led to much of the animus driving the updated conflict.

"CHS was segregated and roughly 50-50 when I attended."

10:38...come back when you can make sense.

@9:35 PM - Hi Miss Gloria. I love your prose. You are truly a wordsmith. Go girl!

9:35PM replying to Cynical Sam:

Thanks for the compliment re: "...a wordsmith..." but I'm not "Miss Gloria."

Congrats to the wordsmith at 7:17 pm who twice in a brief post misspelled the name of the town being discussed. Please take a seat in the trophy-presentation-room while we decide on one suitable for you.

This is what happens when you allow government to tell you where your children must attend school as students. Only the poor have no school choice. That's the true injustice. Whites in areas of the delta have school choice it's called tuition. Much like northeast Jackson as opposed to South or west Jackson. It's not right and the state black democrats are in favor of this crap.

I live in Cleveland and I am packing my bags!