Impact of white flight on efforts to integrate Durham schools
Clayton briefly compares her experiences at North Durham in the early 1970s to those she had at Fayetteville Street School during the mid-1970s. According to Clayton, by the time she began to work at the Fayetteville Street School, white flight from the city had begun to impact the effectiveness of efforts to integrate the schools. Reflecting on her nearly thirty years of teaching in Durham schools, from 1970 to the time of the interview in 1998, Clayton argues that she had taught significantly more African American students than white students.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Rebecca Clayton, December 8, 1988. Interview K-0132. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ANGELA HORNSBY:
-
Okay, I wanted to see if I could get a little bit more information about
your teaching experience here in Durham.
- REBECCA CLAYTON:
-
All right, I taught five years at North Durham. The population there was
both black and white. It was also during this time that the system was
going through the Federal guidelines of balancing the races in the
schools. In 1975, they closed to North Durham School and I transferred
to Fayetteville Street School. Fayetteville Street School at that time,
in compliance with these Federal guidelines, was paired with another
school. So the kids from the Fayetteville Street area were bussed over
to Club Boulevard, which is off of Roxboro Road and Club Boulevard and
near Northgate Shopping Center. Fayetteville Street is down below North
Carolina Central University. So and then the white children from the
Club Boulevard area were bussed over to Fayetteville Street. Now you
would have a balance in there. And you would have white students in
there in '75 and '76 but that really
didn't work well. Parents were not happy with that. And you
had people moving out of Durham, out of Durham County. And consequently
when I left Fayetteville Street in 1980, I had probably taught two years
with virtually all black classes. And when I moved in 1980 to Holloway
Street, we had black-white population. But by the time we moved over
here in 1995, there'd been many times when I had had
virtually all black classes. I may have had one or two white students or
I may have had a Hispanic student but for the most part it was a large
black population in that area.
- ANGELA HORNSBY:
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So back then—
- REBECCA CLAYTON:
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By back then you mean, '70, '75, 1980?
- ANGELA HORNSBY:
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Yeah, your experience had been primarily with black students?
- REBECCA CLAYTON:
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Oh, we integrated in Virginia in 19—let's see I
left there in 1967—so we had integrated the schools in
Virginia prior—and Prince William County which is Manassas we
had integrated there before I left. So I had had experience with black
students but again that was juniors, juniors in high school. I believe
the year that we integrated, I had all juniors in high school. You had a
serious population of students who really wanted to learn. You also had
that same serious population of students in 1970, 1975. And because the
black parents—I guess if you hear all these stereotypical
things and you believe a lot of that stuff until you're in it
and you see it's not true—because you had black
parents that had the same goals and aspirations
for their children but the white children did. They wanted them to do
well in school. They wanted them to bring home a good report card. They
wanted them to achieve so they could go on to some other level to go to
college, to go to high school, to go whatever. Now I'm not
necessarily seeing all of that here. I don't think anybody
seems to be pushing these kids anymore. Because if you would bring the
parents in, they would really make sure those kids straightened up. Now
I don't see as much of that.
- ANGELA HORNSBY:
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But as part of your Durham experience in the schools would you say that
by and large you've taught more black students than
white—
- REBECCA CLAYTON:
-
Oh I'm pretty sure it's more—yeah I
think the population has been more black students than white.