The Racial Imbalance of New Haven Schools: 1963-1974

By: Dominique Dickenson

Throughout the mid 1960’s, around the time period of The Civil Rights Movement, New Haven and its public schools were experiencing a movement of their own. For years before the 1960’s, there was segregation in New Haven schools on both a primary and secondary. Students on the basis of race were segregated and African Americans were isolated away from the whites as each color attended their own schools. Discrimination wasn’t just obvious on a secondary level of school, but was also noticeable at higher levels of education. Though there were no laws put in place at Universities and Colleges that prohibited African Americans from attending the predominantly white universities, blacks were still unfairly represented at these institutions. After the Brown v.s Board of Education decision where the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools was unconstitutional it became unlawful to prohibit a black student from attending any school they wanted to. By following such Equal Right Movements, the city of New Haven attempted to acknowledge the rights of African Americans in the area, and more specifically in their public schools. In doing so, the New Haven public schools became one of the first places to integrate their schools, however, despite them doing so, blacks were still discriminated against.

                                                                                                                                                      

To see the impact such segregation had on the public schools and higher institutions, one can look at the presence of African Americans at all of the different levels of education, between the time period of the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. We can also look at how these different school boards attacked the problems of the racial imbalance within the schools as it was a major problem. It is important to first look at the racial imbalance of public schools and the education board’s plan to help more “Negroes” attend the school. People might wonder why there was still a disparity between the number of blacks represented in the New Haven public schools being that the education board was “supposedly” working hard to integrate these schools. Such a racial imbalance forces us to look at the motivating factors behind the school creating this plan to integrate these schools. Was such a plan created in order to paint New Haven Schools in a public light, or did the education board actually have genuine intentions behind helping African Americans becoming more integrated after years of being segregated?

The New York Times article, “School Board to Get Plan to Help Negroes” highlights how there was a lack of African Americans in New Haven public schools and that the school board were trying to come up with a plan to fight the racial imbalance at the schools. The article goes into depth about how a school gathered reports from the committee of Equalization of Educational Opportunity, talking about how the parents of the students planned to meet with the school board to discuss how to fix the image of blacks in school. The purpose of having such organizations with the teachers along with the parents is so that they can help “affirm the principles of inequality” among the students parents. Meaning that the parents have the ability to discuss what they deem to be unfair in the current educational system in New Haven and how to fix such racist problems. The committee in charge of creating a plan to get more African Americans to attend the school was amongst the first group of people to acknowledge that there was a racial imbalance in urban school systems that society needed to pay attention to. 

Organizations and committees such as these are important because they gave black parents more power to voice their opinions and bring about the necessary changes they want to see. Such relationships marked a new dynamic between the school’s board of education and the parents which had not previously been there. This dynamic allowed for more public engagement where the surrounding communities could also talk about what progress they want to see being made in the schools. An example of one of the parent organizations that worked hard to advocate for necessary changes for black students in New Haven was the Hill Parents Association led by Fred Harris. The HPA was created in the mid 1960’s because the parents in the Hill area in New Haven realized there was a lack of simple necessities readily available for black students at their public schools. A group that was first started by a couple of African American parents arguing for resources such as toilet paper, become one of the most influential groups during this time. As a result, the group of parents eventually increased in size making them to be more powerful and have a greater influence on the city. This association led by their assertive leader Fred Harris, helped bridge the gap between the schools, the public, and the parents, as they became a voice to advocate for the demands of other black and Latino parents. 

In the NYT article “School Board to Get Plan to Help Negroes” the author made sure to emphasize the fact that New Haven would be the first city to get rid of the De Facto segregation in the schools, and would work to integrate the schools to solve the racial imbalance. Not only did the committee want to fix the student ratio, they also claimed to want to fix the image of the negro, in which the article blatantly states to that, “the efforts to repraise the image of the Negro in the community, it is expected, will be directed at the students themselves”. The question that lies in this statement is, what is their current image of the black students, and why does the school want to change it so bad? Based on the article, it appears that the school believes that the black Newhaveners gave them a negative image. The education board may have thought that by changing the image of the blacks students will help portray their school in a better light. Such a statement, once again shows why this two-fold plan is skeptical, speaking to the perceived, and historical role, of schools as instruments of a racial uplift.

Whether by choice, or obligation to keep up with the national progression towards racial equality, a majority of the New Haven schools attempted to come up with radical plans that would fix the racial segregation within schools. Though many of the New Haven educational boards created elaborate plans or organizations that would enforce such principles, the greater problem became carrying out these plans. Many of these plans consisted of finding ways to have more African American’s attend the schools; whether it was by building a new school in a predominantly black neighborhood or providing them with the funds in the form of a scholarship to attend their school. Though the public schools planned to create an organization between the parents and the school board, it is unclear if the school actually went through with the plans, or if a concrete plan was even created. Based on qualitative sources that follow not long after 1963, one can infer that New Haven schools weren't as successful with the racial progress they had hoped to make as blacks were still amongst the one percent represented at predominantly white schools.

An article from The New York Times titled, “Higher Education Fund Aid’s Blacks” written in 1971, talks about how the city of New Haven needs to acknowledge the lack of quality education available for African Americans and how there is a great need for help educational wise within the community as very few blacks have a high school diploma. The article places more emphasis on high school students and their transition into institutions. To help support more African American students going to college, a group of black leaders within New Haven attempted to create a scholarship fund, which of course had little success given the little support from the surrounding communities, the city, and the New Haven schools. However, as the group persisted and their support grew with the help of nine social-civic groups, the fund was able to raise $11,000 the first year. Given the fact that the black community had to create an organization that would have funds available for other black students showed that the African Americans weren’t given the same opportunities and had to work much harder to get into higher level institutions compared to the white folks. These particular funds were given in the form of grants for students in well Merritt standing, as well as those whose family couldn’t financially afford to pay for college tuition. The unequal opportunities blacks had as it pertained to receiving a higher education is quite evident as statistics in 1964 tell that approximately seventy percent of African Americans over the age of 25 do not have a high school diploma, let alone a college one. The data comes from a survey conducted by the National Urban League, in which they also state that out of New Haven's 22,000 African American residents, that only 2,258 and those attempting to go to college have enough funds to get through, resulting in very few African Americans attending college.

To give a more specific example of the racial imbalance within schools and colleges, one can look specifically at the data that shows what predominant races were at different schools in New Haven. In one of the sources that is a comparison of Racial Distribution in New Haven Schools in 1971-1970-1969, it is very clear that schools were still very much segregated and that the primary race present at the school was very dependent on where the school was placed. Most notable was Baldwin Elementary’s School, and their student body which for three years consisted of only 1% white students at that school, while blacks made up 96% of the school’s population. Whereas the most diverse school appears to be Kimberly, which among the three years had a white population of around 46%, and a black population of around 42% Based on these numbers, one can assume that this particular school was placed in a more diverse area or that the school was more accepting of multiple races. In contrast to the statistics present here, one can look at Southern Connecticut State Teachers College class of 1970’s yearbook to understand the demographic of students represented in higher education. The yearbook shows that there were very few African Americans present or captured in the pictures in comparison to the white people, which calls attention to the need for more black representation and integration. Southern’s State College yearbook shows that even though schools on all levels were supposedly integrated, whites were still the predominant race, emphasizing the racial disparity that was not only prevalent in the public schools, but the higher institutions as well.

 Bibliography 

Greenlee, Robert. “Higher Education Fund Aids Blacks,” The New York Times, June 3, 1971

Laurel Yearbook, Southern Connecticut State Teachers College, 1969

Moss, Hilary, and Jones, Jacqueline. Opportunity and Opposition: The African American Struggle

           for Education in New Haven, Baltimore and Boston, 1825–1855, 2004

Orfield, Gary and Ee, Jongyeon. “Connecticut School Integration,” The Civil Rights Project, April,

2015

“School Board To Get Plan To Help Negroes,” The New York Times, September 9, 1963