People who went to/currently attend segregation academies, what was it like?

8 comments

1. What’s a segregation academy??

2. I’m sorry but where did your dad go to school that they assigned him *The Turner Diaries* to read? That book goes way beyond segregationist ideology or even pro-slavery ideology, it’s a book about how terrorists should use nukes to overthrow the US government so they can conduct a holocaust of Jews and black people.

   You couldn’t even buy it in bookstores, you would have had to order it in the mail directly from the neonazi group that published it.

3. I’ve never even heard of it

4. I didn’t attend one but knew a lady who did. The school started in 1961 and had about a thousand students but over time it declined and closed in 1969. She didn’t have a choice in the matter but later on she made it known she didn’t like it there so she left to attend and graduate from the public school system. I don’t remember much of what she told me except it was a regular school and the yearbook was called The Rebel Yell.

5. In the early 2000’s, I went to a school founded in the 1960’s as a segregation academy. In the 2000’s of course there were no racial prohibitions and there were even a few black students. Education was fine. Certainly no worse than the public high school. We didn’t read extremist literature, bemoan integration, or attend klan rallies. We read “To Kill a Mockingbird” and took AP US History just like everyone else.

6. Sounds more like a cult than a widespread American experience.

7. I have clearly lived a very sheltered life, because I was today years old when I found out that something called a “segregation academy” is a thing that exist(ed?).

8. I didn’t personally attend a segregation academy, but I’ve known people who did, and their experiences seem to vary quite a bit. Some of them didn’t realize the school’s history or its connection to segregation until much later in life. It’s interesting to hear that your sisters had a negative experience and that your father was required to read the Turner Diaries as part of the curriculum.

   In my experience, the people I know who attended these schools didn’t seem to have such a blatantly racist curriculum, but some of them mentioned that there was definitely an undercurrent of racism in the school’s culture and community. It’s disheartening to hear that these schools still exist, and it’s a reminder that progress in many areas can be slow and that there’s still a lot of work to be done in terms of improving social awareness and dismantling longstanding prejudices.