Whites linked their children’s safety in public space directly to neighborhood racial composition

Evidence

To determine which community institutions were most important to the integrity of Moreland Heights, the WSMDC surveyed residents in October 1957. “We are asking questions about schools, churches, and so forth which indicate your attitude toward the neighborhood in general,” the committee wrote, “because this attitude often has a direct influence on a property owner’s decision to sell or stay.” Because a majority of Moreland Heights residents were elderly, it was not surprising that relatively few had ties to local schools. A third of those surveyed did have children enrolled and were themselves active in local parent-teacher Associations. One such parent, an auto mechanic, worried that he would have to remove his children from the schools if the neighborhood’s racial composition changed. “I have 3 girls,” he wrote. “And I would not want them walking to and from school through negros settlers on this street.” — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 207

Categorization

• SEED: The fear of daughters walking through black neighborhoods is a concrete micro case showing how race and gender anxieties fused to justify white flight.
• XREF: connects to: Whites anchored neighborhood defense to public amenities like parks and schools — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 165; Exposure to minorities increases whites’ race-based self-definition; Whites redefined neighborhood worth as racial homogeneity plus amenity self-sufficiency — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 187 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Whites redefined neighborhood worth as racial homogeneity plus amenity self-sufficiency #expands (0.85) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 187
• Racially patterned residential preferences reproduce segregation without overt racism #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1783
• Risk discourse maps racialized threats onto urban symbolic space #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2309
• Exposure to minorities increases whites’ race-based self-definition #expands (0.75)