7 Racist Reasons White People Gave to Avoid Integration

No Black Tenants In Detroit, whites protesting the construction of a federal housing project for war workers posted a sign with American flags reading, "We want white tenants in our white community," directly opposite the building site. On the day the first Black family moved into the Sojourner Truth homes, the protesters rioted. Prevent Blacks from Acquiring White Neighbor's Resources As author Kevin Kruse has shown in his book White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism, a 1966 citizen pamphlet titled Save Sandy Springs charged that Black Atlantans’ bloc voting power was the driving force behind Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield’s push to annex Sandy Springs, an Atlanta suburb known for its discriminatory real estate practices. In other words, it framed annexation specifically as a Black grab for white resources that Sandy Springs could resist by maintaining its political independence. Integration Decreases Property Value Mayor Hartsfield once wrote: "The race question is not confined to the South alone," while describing the Chicago Federation of Neighborhood Association's campaign "to uphold property values in Chicago, which are being ruined by promiscuous mixture by the races." No Black Kids in School Many whites moved after desegregation to ensure that their children would not have to go to school with African-Americans. Only Low-Class White People Live in Cities 'Among the Coloreds' Whites felt that moving to all-white suburbs would help them to achieve a higher social status among their peers who might look down on them for staying in the city. Cities Run by Black Officials Are Corrupt and Poorly Run "If anyone doubts this advice, let him tune in on any Sunday night at 10:30 p.m. over station WINX and listen to the so-called services of a certain church and hear the savage howls that hark back to the jungle ... and ask himself whether he thinks the group there represented intelligent enough to exercise the right of suffrage and decide the future of the well-being of the Capital City." These are the words of Clinton Howard, the great-nephew of the white man Howard University is named after, speaking about the right to vote for Washington D.C., citizens. Integration Threatens White Civilization During the 1930s and 1940s, Sen. Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi became the de facto mayor of Washington, D.C., as the head of the Senate's District of Columbia Committee. He hated the fact that nearly half the residents of the city were Black and filibustered a 1938 anti-lynching bill to protect "Saxon civilization." He once said, "If you go through the government departments, there are so many n***ers it's like a black cloud around you." He repeatedly introduced a bill to deport all Blacks to Africa.

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