They said they were private “Christian schools” offering a “Christian education.”
But it was really just white parents’ way of keeping their kids from having to go to school with Black kids.
They’re called segregation academies, and many of them still exist and remain predominantly white.
These institutions were started in the 1950s after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling required public school boards to eliminate segregation.
Public schools. It didn’t apply to private.
So white parents in the majority of southern states got together and created what would be known as a white flight or segregation academies.
A significant number of them were named for Confederate leaders with a (Confederate) Rebel mascot and carried the Christian label.
I wanna see how some of these institutions have fared in the last 50+ years. Here are a few interesting headlines:
Alumni from Brentwood Academy (Christian) in Tennessee speak up on a “pattern of callous disregard and willful negligence … regarding issues of racial harm and insensitivity” from the leadership of their alma mater, calling the school’s environment “hostile to students of color.”
In 2011, the headmaster at Autauga Academy in Alabama told a star Black student-athlete that he couldn't take his girlfriend to prom because she was white.
At Tallahassee’s North Florida Christian School, a 17-year-old student faced disciplinary action after her afro was considered “faddish or extreme” and should instead be “neat and clean at all times.”
Here is the growing map of these institutions. If you have additions or would like to report an error, please email map @ creatorclubhq.com.