Race in My Community
Nadine McGee
September 9, 2010
ETH/125
Roger Morton
Race in My Community
1.
I live in a community that has struggled with race relations every since I moved here. It has always been evident in people’s actions and especially in the schools and politics. Even though things are still bad, especially in the schools things are looking better because our community has recently elected the first African American mayor and Sheriff in our town.
I moved to Midnight, Mississippi in 1982 to start my family. At that time race relations was extremely tense. I had my daughter Lisa in 1983 and she started head start in 1986. When my daughter started she was the only Caucasian child in the entire head start school. I was questioned many times by people as to why I would send my child there. I always let it be known that I could not afford the private school and my child had just as much a right to go to the public school as the African American’s did. She remained the only Caucasian child in head start until my son Casey started in 1988. At the same time the “whites” in our town did everything humanly possible to keep any other race out of the private school except the “whites”. I had a friend who was from China and the private school made her children miserable so she removed them. On April, 13, 2010 a judge ordered our town to implement programs to integrate our public school. Certain schools were still being labeled “white schools, or Black schools”. (Mississippi Schools Desegregation Order, 2010). From my experience in working with the public and private schools to implement a reading program, things have certainly
2.
changed since the 80’s. While visiting both schools I saw more diversity in races than I had ever seen.
Our community according to the 2000 census has, 9809 in population, 25.2% are Caucasian, 73.9% are African American, and 49.15 of businesses are owned by African Americans (Census Facts, 2010). Since the...
