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IDKMYDE: When Integration Cost the Black Community Everything · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: When integration cost black communities everything. I welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: it als to another episode of the most anticipated podcast
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  Speaker 1: on the Black Effect podcast Network, especially in February, entitled
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I'm your host,
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  Speaker 1: b Dot, and I firmly believe that integration destroyed black communities.
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  Speaker 1: See integration is usually told like a Nipsey Hustle album,
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  Speaker 1: a victory lab. School's open doors open, everybody moved forward.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the question that I rarely hear, asks what
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  Speaker 1: got closed in the process. Yeah, let's open that case file.
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  Speaker 1: But before we do, I've got three of the most
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  Speaker 1: useless facts you'll never need, never, never, ever, not a
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  Speaker 1: day in life about integration. Up first, after integration, thousands
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  Speaker 1: of black schools were shut down all across South. Your
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  Speaker 1: second useless facts, over thirty thousand black teachers and principles
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  Speaker 1: lost their jobs in that exodus, thirty eight thousand actually
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  Speaker 1: between nineteen fifty four and nineteen seventy two is documented.
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  Speaker 1: And your third useless fact, many black owned businesses collapsed
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  Speaker 1: when black dollars were redirected elsewhere. Did you know those
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  Speaker 1: three useless facts about integration because I didn't. I didn't know,
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  Speaker 1: did No. I didn't know. I didn't No, I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't know. Yes, integration gave black people access, but it
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  Speaker 1: also dismantled black infrastructure. Before integration, black communities had black schools,
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  Speaker 1: black teachers, black principles, black owned businesses, black doctors, lawyers, banks.
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  Speaker 1: Not because segregation was good, because exclusion forced us to
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  Speaker 1: build our own systems. I'm a product of an HBCU
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  Speaker 1: historically black college and university, Winston Salem State University, which
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  Speaker 1: started as Slater Industrial Academy on September twenty eighth, eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety two, in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Now you leave
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  Speaker 1: Winston Salem State University, you get on forty East, and
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  Speaker 1: you had about an hour you'll get to Durham, North Carolina,
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  Speaker 1: which was once called the Black Wall Street of the South.
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  Speaker 1: By the nineteen forties, black owned businesses there generated three
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  Speaker 1: point five million dollars annually. After integration, many of them
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  Speaker 1: closed within a decade. See. When integration came, the promise
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  Speaker 1: was equality, but the reality black schools were closed instead
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  Speaker 1: of funded, Black educators were fired instead of promoted. Black
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  Speaker 1: institutions were absorbed, dissolved, or just plaining ignored. White schools
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  Speaker 1: didn't integrate into Black schools. Black schools integrated into white systems,
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  Speaker 1: and then poof disappeared. The same with businesses. When access expanded,
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  Speaker 1: black money stopped circulating locally, businesses that once thrived in
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  Speaker 1: the black community collapsed. And this ain't even necessarily an
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  Speaker 1: argument against integration. It's an argument against pretending that it
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  Speaker 1: came without loss, because here's the part that gets erased.
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  Speaker 1: Black communities weren't just surviving segregation. We were organizing, educating,
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  Speaker 1: and sustaining our damnselves. And when those systems were removed
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  Speaker 1: without replacement, a vacuum form, and that vacuum didn't get
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  Speaker 1: filled with opportunity, it got filled with dependency. Nobody ever
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  Speaker 1: explains that part, which is exactly why Cartgie Woodson warned
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  Speaker 1: us against celebrating progress without examining consequences. He believed history
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  Speaker 1: had to be complete, not comforting. And here we are,
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  Speaker 1: a century later, still dealing with the fallout of solutions
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  Speaker 1: that ignored Black systems instead of strengthening them. So, yes,
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  Speaker 1: two things can be true. Integration did open doors, but
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  Speaker 1: it so shut down entire communities, and I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you didn't either. I didn't know h