Jessica Drobny

Desegregation in Gwinnett County Schools

In Georgia, segregation was a normal part of daily life.  Everything from water fountains to buses to public buildings was segregated.  When the country started to make a move toward black integration and even equality, Georgia leaders began preparing alternatives.  At first, they tried to equalize the separate schools.  They hoped that by improving the funding for materials, buildings, and salaries that blacks would not desire to integrate.  This worked for a time, but when desegregation became inevitable, whites resorted to the formation of private schools and migration to areas with smaller black populations.  As in the past, many adopted violence to keep blacks in their place.  Life was not favorable for blacks in Georgia, but Georgia was no different than most southern states.  With desegregation looming in the distant future, whites were torn between the new ways of their changing country and the supremacy they had long enjoyed and depended on for their very existence.  1

            Gwinnett County has never had a large black population.  The main reason for this is the fact that for many years Gwinnett was a very rural area.  In the beginning of the twentieth century, cities had become the center of society and the desired form of living.  As people flocked to the cities, a major portion of the black population also made this move.  Cities provided more opportunities and community for blacks.  As a result, blacks moved to the cities, and most rural areas retained a small black population.  Blacks tended to congregate in ghettos, and many resorted to crime.  As time progressed and life in the cities declined, people began moving to the suburbs to escape the crowded cities.  Money was a necessity for people to be able to move.  Because many people continued to work in the cities, they had to have enough money to be able to commute from their new homes to their jobs.  By moving from the cities, whites believed that they had left many of the racial problems behind them.  Struggling to survive even in the cities, blacks could not afford this new commuter style of living.  As a result, most blacks remained in the cities, and the black population of rural areas remained mostly the same.  The migration of blacks to the cities and whites from the cities is very important to the condition of Gwinnett County in the 1970s.  It made the transition to desegregated schools an easier adjustment.  2

            The 1970 census shows that Gwinnett County’s black population was approximately five percent of the total population.  This percentage is fairly small compared to the thirty-nine percent black population in the neighboring Fulton County.  The major migration of blacks to the cities occurred between 1930 and 1970 because of the declining economic situation of farmers in the state.  Atlanta was not only a fairly large city but also very close.  As a result, blacks were moving from counties such as Gwinnett to counties like Fulton.  Whites, like blacks, had moved to the cities during this time, and most of them had done so for economic reasons.  As more and more blacks moved to the cities, whites began to be dissatisfied.  They were not content living with the growing black presence and began to seek an escape.  By 1970, blacks were only a very small percentage of Gwinnett, and this made the county very appealing to whites.  It was close enough to Atlanta that commuting was possible, and it was far enough from the city to avoid its problems.  Being in Gwinnett, whites could enjoy better schools and less crime.  Most importantly, they could avoid most interaction with blacks.  Moving to Gwinnett was a great way to avoid the race issue.  The rising number of blacks in the cities meant that eventually change would occur.  As long as Gwinnett maintained a small percentage of blacks, those blacks could never bring about serious change.  White dominance was present in Gwinnett even through the 1980s. 3 

            The 1980 census made it even clearer that blacks were moving to the cities and whites were moving out.  In Fulton County, the black population was slightly above fifty- one percent.  Fulton’s blacks were up twelve percent from 1970.  Similar trends occurred in DeKalb and Clarke.  Dekalb County was up fourteen percent, and Clarke County was up four percent.  In contrast, Gwinnett County’s black population went down to two percent in 1980.  Walton County, being a little further out of Atlanta, went from twenty- seven percent black to twenty percent.  The large black percentages in counties like Fulton caused even more whites to move from those areas.  Blacks were gaining more and more control and influence with their growing numbers. 4

            In September 1970, eighty-one school districts in Georgia opened as desegregated.  They became desegregated as a result of a court order against them.  David Hitchcock of Gwinnett claimed that the school day was going well.  It is understandable that Gwinnett’s first day of integration would go well because of the few number of blacks in Gwinnett.  It would not have been a major change, so they would have had few problems.  This accounts for the little mention of Gwinnett in many racial issues.  They simply did not have the number of blacks to cause any significant problems, but people of Gwinnett did not accept blacks without some opposition.  Their opposition may not have been as obvious, but it was definitely present.  5

            Many parents refused to accept the integration of even a small percentage of black students.  In order to avoid the unfavorable conditions, many whites resorted to the formation of private schools.  Because they were not controlled or funded by the state, private schools could continue the segregated learning environment.  Most private schools were founded during this critical time of integration.  For example, Duluth Junior Academy was formed in 1972.  While it is not known for sure, it is reasonable to believe that this school along with many others was formed for the sole purpose of continued segregation.  Even before integration was forced, whites began preparing for private schools.  Once schools were desegregated, parents pulled their students from those schools and sent them to the new private schools.  Private schools in reality were a sort of rebellion against this new form of life.  6

            Desegregation was a huge issue across the entire country, and Georgia was no exception.  For many years, Georgians tried to stop integration.  When they realized that they could not stop it, they decided to focus their efforts on finding ways to avoid desegregation.  Intimidation and violence were used and were often quite successful, but violence was not the answer that everyone desired.  Many removed their children from the public school system and enrolled them in the newly formed private schools.  Another alternative was location.  Many whites moved to areas with smaller black populations hoping to make desegregation a little less painful.  Whatever the choice they made, it was not an easy transition for whites and blacks alike.  Desegregation of schools contradicted everything that whites had been taught to believe for generations.  Black inferiority was so engrained in their minds that whites were willing to do whatever it took to preserve that way of thinking.  Blacks were faced with the difficult task of entering a world in which they were unwanted and sure to be treated unfairly.  Gwinnett County does not record many problems with desegregation, but problems and hatred existed there just like everywhere else in the country.  Volume was what made the difference.  Because there were so few blacks in Gwinnett, racial tension was to a lesser degree.  As a result, whites moved to Gwinnett in masses.  It was able to provide whites with an escape from blacks in the city.  Gwinnett County did not experience as great of problems with desegregation because the majority of its population was white.