From Desegregation to Desexigration in Richmond, Virginia, 1954-1973
.......................................................................................................v Introduction...................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Designing Dignity in the Dress ways of Downtown Richmond..............17 Chapter Two: Cashing in On Chivalry: Dignity, Desegregation, and the Demarcation of Space in the Thalhimer Boycott..........................................49 Chapter Three: Revolutionizing Retail & the Region: The Formation of Multiracial Female Coalitions in Downtown Richmond.................................74 Chapter Four: Feminism in Fashion: The Foothold of Personal Politics in Richmond, Virginia...............................................................................94 Conclusion.................................................................................................106 Bibliography...............................................................................................109
Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia
Black and white power struggles in segregated Virginia; Tracing the erosion of white elite paternalism in Jim Crow Virginia, Douglas Smith reveals a surprising fluidity in southern racial politics in the decades between World War I and the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Smith draws on official records, private correspondence, and letters to newspapers from otherwise anonymous Virginians to capture a wide and varied range of black and white voices. African Americans emerge as central characters in the narrative, as Smith chronicles their efforts to obtain access to public schools and libraries, protection under the law, and the equitable distribution of municipal resources. This acceleration of black resistance to white supremacy in the years before World War II precipitated a crisis of confidence among white Virginians, who, despite their overwhelming electoral dominance, felt increasingly insecure about their ability to manage the color line on their own terms. Exploring the everday power struggles that accompanied the erosion of white authority in the political, economic, and educational arenas, Smith uncovers the seeds of white Virginians' resistance to civil rights activism in the second half of the twentieth century.
Reply to Armor
In his response to our article (Carr and Zeigler 1990), David Armor (1991) concedes that his predictions about the maximum amount of White flight that would occur in Norfolk if busing continued were incorrect but argues that his predictions about the minimum amount of White flight were correct. He takes the same position on his predictions about White return to the schools if busing for integration was ended: His maximum prediction was wrong, but the level of White return falls within the range of his minimum prediction. We believe that the data on Norfolk school enrollments provide strong evidence that clearly refutes the various arguments that Armor makes to defend his original minimum predictions. We will show that both White flight and White return fall far below his predicted levels. Armor makes it clear in his response that he has consistently advocated that Norfolk end busing in grades K-12. To that end, the 1982 report he submitted to the Norfolk school board, entitled, "An Evaluation of Norfolk Desegregation Plans," contained an evaluation of Armor's own plan that Norfolk end busing in grades K-12. The school board, however, had no plan to end busing in grades K-12, only in the elementary schools. In his 1982 report and in a 1983 addendum, Armor provided no means to adapt his K-12 predictions to what would actually happen when busing was ended in grades K-5.l The failure to do so created real difficulties for those who were presented with the task of evaluating his research. It was compounded by the fact that neither I nor two nationally recognized experts in the area of school desegregation could understand the methods that he employed to arrive at his predictions. As we stated in footnote 2 of our article (Carr and Zeigler, 1990, p. 274), Armor did not respond to repeated requests to explain his methods. In his response to our article, Armor has at last proposed a way to adapt his predictions of White loss and White return for grades K-12 to grades K-5: He simply split everything in half. We still do not understand how Armor arrived at his original estimate of a White loss of 3,000 to 5,000 in grades K-12 over five years, and there are certain inaccuracies in his explanation of why a 50-50 split is appropriate.2 Nevertheless, we will use his figures which indicate that, both grades K-S and 6-12 would lose a minimum of 300 White students a year if busing continued. As Armor (1991) noted, when he made his predictions in 1982, he expected busing to end the same year. If busing had ended that year, there would have been no way to test the accuracy of his predictions about continuing White flight. But busing for integration did not end until 1986. During those four years, grades K-12 stabilized. Instead of a loss of White students in grades K-S, there was a gain, and the loss in grades 6-12 greatly moderated. Armor argues in his response that the gain in grades K-S was due