It seems like slavery was integration, when you view it in that context, because we are still systematically enslaved to a large degree.
But on the other hand, you may want to checkout Dr. Claude Andersons' explanation of integration, which changed my mind on how we define it. He says black folks only thought they were fighting for integration, however they were really fighting for inclusion. He's says the proper way to integrate is to build your own, then integrate when you have something of value to bring to the table. What we did was get tricked into fighting for inclusion, not interrogation. That's why we're in trouble now. On that note, I never did understand those sit-ins by those young college students. If they're throwing coffee in your face and spitting on you because you want to eat their food, think of what they're going to put in your coffee when they actually do serve you. It just doesn't make any common sense to me. No wonder we get all the bad food.
It sounds like you're saying if it wasn't for integration, they never would have been able to interfere with the progress of blacks there in Phoenix, which does make since when I realize we were really fighting for inclusion instead.
I'll tell you this much, KPITRL, I recall having only Black teachers, women AND men as teachers up until 1970. In 1970, *all of a sudden* I had more white women teachers than anything else! I'm saying, white women teachers *teaching* us Black kids in hood schools! Filling out the admin positions, too. We kids go off for the summer. We all belong to a 100% Black school. We kids come back in the fall and WTF? Yeah.
The curriculum changed. Our schooling went from being a *well oiled machine* to la-la land! They came at us treating us like we were babies! THEY didn't even understand us--the way we spoke (our language)--and didn't hesitate to disapprove/try to embarass any one of us who'd use our common home speech with each other (Black English).
Understand, here, that we were so well educated that when it came time for our lessons, our essays, our prior preparation (academics), we had our mess on lock! So, these white shoulders smelling white ladies would exclaim to us that in some ways, we were little *marvels*--as if we did tricks--because our *spoken arts* failed to keep up with our written skills. Thing is, nearly every one of us had been 'taught' to code switch...smh...that kind of mess was taught to all of us starting in the 1st grade.
Talk about WEIRD! These broads knew NOTHING 'about us'. As one of my friends once said, 'School feels funny' with them here. Yeah. Felt foreign.
Interesting fact. The greatest of our freedom fighters, scholars, political nightmares for the system? The Panthers, Angela, Huey, Stokely--ALL of them--
ALL were educated in segregated schools. The foundation work that powered their academic careers came from the work of Negro/Black teachers. Some eventually operated on THINK TANK levels. Grasped ALL of the concepts. Thing is, they *applied* all of their learning towards the 'uplift' of our people, right? So...
Any wonder, today, how it is that the phenomena of white women teachers flooding the hood schools should have *suddenly* come about? Were these white women teachers the *top of their classes*? Or were they the bottom cull? Not good at their jobs 'elsewhere'? Because WHAT in the world compelled them to brave our hoods? They got no special police protections--not where I was raised. Maybe they got combat pay...IONO, but arrive in droves? Yes. They and white administrators *flooded our minority district*.
Know why? By the 1950s, the average Negro segregated school--even the 1 room shack variety school--had the actual potential of producing another Angela! Another George! Another D!ck! Another Thurgood!
Another *marvel*. Troubling thought, that--and one that obviously had to be dealt with.
One Love, and PEACE