White southerners largely complied with desegregation once defiance demonstrably failed

Evidence

The dire predictions that busing would shatter the moderate consensus for public education proved to be false, and almost all white students in the metropolitan district now attended facilities where the black population represented between one-fifth and one-third of the total enrollment. Sixteen years after the Brown decision, white liberals in the New South metropolis openly championed the principle of comprehensive racial integration and sharply criticized the antibusing movement without fear of social retribution. The most progressive activists in Charlotte endorsed the social benefits of pluralism and the moral imperative of redistributive racial policies with a confidence that would have been impossible a decade earlier. The much larger number of white moderates strongly preferred neighborhood schools and supported the appeal of the court order, but they also refused to countenance defiance of the law and chose compliance after the tactics of delay failed. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 95

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Desegregation pressure forced white southerners to reinvent racism as color-blind rights conservatism — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 25; Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment; Atlanta whites resisted desegregation less violently than northern whites did — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 38 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Pool desegregation appeared peaceful only because whites fled rather than accepted it #complicates (0.85) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 289
• Desegregation pressure forced white southerners to reinvent racism as color-blind rights conservatism #complicates (0.82) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 25
• Intransigent white resisters destroyed compromise efforts and sped neighborhood transition #qualifies (0.78) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 221
• Large black populations made southern white resistance less violent but also less successful #qualifies (0.76) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 38
• Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment #complicates (0.75)
• Atlanta whites resisted desegregation less violently than northern whites did #exemplifies (0.72) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 38