Court-ordered desegregation of public spaces produced resegregation and private alternatives, not integration

Evidence

Although the two terms are commonly conflated, “desegregation” did not, in practice, mean the same thing as “integration.” To be sure, many whites acquiesced to court-ordered desegregation, but that did not mean they were themselves willing to share public spaces with blacks. A majority of white Atlantans recoiled at the thought of social contact between the races, which they more commonly disdained as “interracial intimacy.” Accordingly, as public spaces desegregated, whites abandoned them, effectively resegregating those places in the process. In the end, court-ordered desegregation of public spaces brought about not actual racial integration, but instead a new division in which the public world was increasingly abandoned to blacks and a new private one was created for whites. — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 250

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 3 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Segregationist leaders urged privatization or abandonment of public lands rather than integration — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 278; Pool desegregation appeared peaceful only because whites fled rather than accepted it — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 289; White passenger flight predated actual bus desegregation, beginning at the mere threat of it — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 271 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Voluntary local desegregation produced tokenism and arbitrary exclusion rather than integration. #corroborates (0.80) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 481
• Ending legal discrimination merely substituted white preference for explicit exclusion #corroborates (0.78)
• Racial ordering persists by relocating from public law to private spheres #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1845
• Formal equal access from unequal starting positions perpetuates exclusion #corroborates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 115
• Racelessness redraws public norms while privatizing the institutional mechanisms that perpetuate exclusion #expands (0.70) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 959