School Desegregation Failure: New York's Impact On Black Students' Segregation From White Students

School desegregation was introduced in the 1960's and 70's to help black students enter all-white schools. Some cities adopted school desegregation, but New York City did not. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why school desegregation failed nationwide, historian Matthew F. Delmont explained in his book -- "Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation."

"New York never saw a large-scale integration program, and it was never ordered by courts to make its schools more racially balanced," Huffington Post reports. "Nowadays, New York state is home to the nation's most segregated schools."

A Supreme Court decision in 1954 stated that segregating black students from white students is illegal. However, New York resisted any attempt to practice school desegregation. Too many parents in New York City did not want their white children going to school with black children.

One example is when hundreds of black and Puerto Rican students were taken to areas in New York with many white Americans in order to make the place more racially diverse. The white parents reacted by going on the offensive and holding protests against this move.

Since these anti-school desegregation protests were held in one of the most famous and influential cities, the whole nation took notice and followed suit. In the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal government was blocked from promoting school desegregation. The New York City protests might have also shown a model for other cities on how to be anti-school desegregation without sounding too racist.

Nowadays, there are still many citizens and legislators who want to implement school desegregation. "These plans continue to call for desegregation, including mixing mandatory and voluntary plans, magnet schools, and "controlled" choice (i.e., student choice of schools consistent with desegregation goals)," Civil Rights 101 reports.