September marks the 50th anniversary of racial integration in Jefferson County’s public schools.
In 1975, on the order of a federal judge, the city and county school systems merged. White students were bused across town to majority-Black areas, and Black students were bused into majority-white areas. The legacy of that decision is complicated. The move is credited with boosting academic achievement, economic growth and community cohesion.
But the change also sparked protests and violence among white residents opposed to integration, and diluted the voice of Black families and teachers in their newly integrated schools.
Today, that original integration plan has been almost entirely dismantled. Instead, district leaders are implementing a new arrangement that offers Black students schools closer to home.
Jess Clark, education reporter with the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, spoke with Courier Journal education reporter Krista Johnson about the paper’s new series exploring the nuanced legacy of integration in Jefferson County. The Courier Journal is hosting a panel on the legacy of integration at The Academy @ Shawnee at 6 p.m. on Sept. 17.
Their full conversation is available here:
This transcript of their conversation is edited for length and clarity.
CLARK: Integration efforts look very different today than they did in 1975. Can you talk about how those efforts have changed?
JOHNSON: Absolutely. So as you mentioned in the beginning, there was two-way busing: white students into predominantly Black areas and vice versa. But over the years, that plan was chipped away to the point where, up until a few years ago, it was predominantly just Black students in and around the West End being bused into schools to integrate those schools that otherwise might be predominantly white. And then in 2023 the district changed its student assignment plan and ended the mandatory busing for Black students in and around the West End, which has allowed west Louisville students to choose schools closer to their home.
CLARK: Back in 2020 I did a series about this proposal, and at the time, many folks in the West End acknowledged that they were very frustrated by the long bus rides that were falling on them and their kids, but they were also very worried about this plan creating segregated schools. What does your reporting show about how this has played out demographically?
JOHNSON: As predicted, the plan has resulted in more segregated schools. This is the just the beginning of the third year of the plan, and already we're seeing schools predominantly in the East End becoming more white and more affluent, while the schools in the West End are serving a school population of predominantly Black and students from impoverished households.
CLARK: When this plan was proposed, leaders said that, yes, it will probably re-segregate the district, but they had some plans to mitigate the impacts of segregation: mainly extra funding for high-poverty schools. Is that working?
JOHNSON: Not necessarily. One of the things that [the district is doing] with the extra funding is additional stipends for the teachers who choose to work in these [high-poverty] schools. The hope was that that would attract and retain teachers and there wouldn't be this extreme shortage. And [still] there has [been an extreme shortage]. Particularly, Hudson Middle School has had the highest rate of shortages among all schools in the district. There have been positives, though, that are worth noting. The Academy @ Shawnee has probably seen the biggest change over the past two years. That school went from maybe 400 or 500 kids to over 1,000 now, and that brings new sports teams, that brings new electives, new advanced classes, a lot of things that they couldn't do before, even if they'd wanted to, including putting on a drama production. That wasn't possible with so few kids, therefore so little funding.
CLARK: And so you talked to a parent, Carla Robinson, and she was actually a parent who chose Hudson Middle School in the West End, but has since pulled her kid out. What did she tell you about the experience of attending one of those new, essentially segregated schools in the West End?
JOHNSON: So Carla's issues with Hudson wasn't that it was a segregated school. She liked the idea of keeping her children in their community, so this was a great alternative in her mind. And she feels like the money wasn't equating to a good learning environment. The shortage of teachers in the building, or just adults in general, created situations she felt were unsafe overall. Her feeling is that the district has promised families in the West End a lot of things over the years that just haven't been delivered.
