Professional Documents
Culture Documents
David Riddle (2000) - Race and Reaction in Warren, Michigan, 复制
David Riddle (2000) - Race and Reaction in Warren, Michigan, 复制
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Central Michigan University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Michigan Historical R e v i e w
STOR
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Race and Reaction in Warren, Michigan,
,
1971 to 1974: Bradley v. Milliken and the
e
Cross-District Busing Controversy 1
g
by
David Riddle e
In the spring of 1971 the Detroit branch of the NAACP sued the
e
Detroit Board of Education, triggering a protracted political and legal battle
and a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that changed the course of school
l
desegregation in the United States. The civil rights group charged that for
r
years the board had pursued policies that harmed black students and
d
teachers in the Detroit school system. Not only did the school board spend
d
disproportionately more of its building and maintenance budget on schools
s
in white neighborhoods, but also students from overcrowded black schools
s
were routinely bused around “white schools” and reassigned to the nearest
“black school.” The school system also maintained separate seniority lists for
black and white teachers, and black teachers seldom taught white students.
Federal District Judge Stephen J. Roth heard the case. During forty-
one days of testimony from 6 April through 22 July 1971 the NAACP
lawyers presented evidence that racial segregation had occurred and that it
was de jure (the result of deliberate government action). Attorneys for the
e
Detroit Board of Education argued that the current school board was
committed to desegregation and had already instituted appropriate reforms.
On 27 September 1971 Judge Roth ruled that the NAACP had proved its
s
case. Until June of 1972 the judge considered plans to desegregate the
school system. It was becoming clear, however, that there would soon be
e
too few white students in the Detroit school system to bring about
t
meaningful desegregation. (Black students already made up 65 percent of
the total student population, and white enrollment was dropping fast.)
Responding to the pleas of attorney Alexander Ritchie, who represented
d
the parents of the dwindling population of white students in the
e
Detroit school system, Judge Roth took what turned out to be a
disastrous gamble in June 1972. He ordered the two-way busing
. g
1
This article is adapted from R. David Riddle, “The Rise of the ‘Reagan Democrats’
'
in Warren, Michigan, 1964-1984” (Ph.D. diss., Wayne State University, 1998): 180-250.
, g , . . ., , .
Michigan Historical Revtevc 26:2 (Fall 2000): 1-49
9
© 2000 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686
g y. 6
All Rights Reserved.
.
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
2 Michigan Historical Review
g w
2
For the HUD affair, see R. David Riddle, “HUD and the Open Housing
g
Controversy of 1970 in Warren, Michigan,” Michigan Historical Review 24, no. 2 (Fall 1998):
:
1-30. For Warren’s reputation, see Tony Zineski and Michael Kenyon, “Where the
e
Racism Really Is—in the Suburbs,” Detroit Scope Magazine,31 August 1968, 6-10.
, p g , g , - .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Fusing Controversy 3
g y
years old when she moved to Warren from Detroit. She and her family
Hved near 11 Mile Road and Schoenherr, on the east side of town. Her
husband commuted to work in Detroit, where he taught school. Her
neighbors also were young. “There were a lot of new homes being built at
that time, and a lot of new families from the Detroit area moved up. . . . It
t
was a young community,” she remembers. Her children were too young
for school when they moved to Warren, and during the next five years she
had three more. She recalls the traditional families in her neighborhood.
“All the mothers were at home with the children. . . . The husbands were
working. . . . I was totally immersed in raising the family.” Although
nobody had a lot of money, people were happy to be bound up in their
family responsibilities. Carmella enjoyed the back-fence camaraderie she
shared with her new neighbors. She found, in conversations over coffee,
that she shared the simple and innocent expectations of her friends. “You
u
had this nice, new house, . . . you were supposed to raise your family and
d
go to church. . . . Pretty much, things were going to be good.” There was a
sense that Warren offered a protective environment for raising children.
g .
The congestion and dangers of the city seemed far away.3
To its new residents, Warren seemed ideal for bringing up a family.
O f course it did lack some amenities. Its acres of sprawling tract housing
offered little in the way of organized recreation. There were few parks.
Children’s exercise opportunities were limited to school gyms,
subdivision streets, and driveway basketball hoops. A 1971 HUD study
on housing needs ranked the lack of recreational facilities second (behind
d
traffic congestion) in residents’ concerns as a “serious problem.” 4
4
O n the other hand, the city had plenty of schools. Margaret Sinclair
remembers moving to Warren in 1955: “The thing I really liked about
the location was that there was a working farm behind us, and right next
t
to the farm was a school. And that’s what attracted us to that
subdivision.” In fact, Warren had six different school districts, some of
which overlapped and served other communities. The reason for this
s
lack of fit between the school districts and the municipalities was that
most of the school districts predated the cities. The districts had grown
out of one-room rural schools that served the farming population when
gp p n
3
Carmella Sabaugh, interview by author, tape recording, Mt. Clemens, Mich., 28
g , y , p g, . , ., 8
January 1997.
4
Warren, Michigan Community Renewal Program Michigan R-175 (CR) Final Report, March
1971 (Mishawaka, Indiana: City Planning Associates, 1971), 33, 20-21.
, y g , , , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
4 Michigan Historical Review
g
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 5
g y
8
U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population,1960, vol. 1, Characteristics of the
e
Population, Part 24, Michigan (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968),
table 20, 74; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Population,1990, section 1 of 2, Social and
Economic Characteristics, Michigan (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993),
table 169, 652; Robert Freehand, interview by author, tape recording, Warren, Mich., 27
February 1997; Richard Lange, interview by author, tape recording, Warren, Mich., 8
g , y , p g, , .,
February 1997.
9
Carmella Sabaugh, interview.
g , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
6 Michigan Historical Review
g w
10
Arthur Johnson, interview by author, tape recording, Detroit, Mich., 17 December 1996.
11
O n the flight of investment capital outside the city of Detroit, see Thomas J.
Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996), 125-52; Jeffrey Mirel, The Rise and Fall of an Urban School
System: Detroit, 1907-1981 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 217-21.
y 12
Mirel, Rise and Fall, 186-96, 229-50, 263, 275; George E. Bushnell, Jr., interview by
y
author, tape recording, Detroit, Mich., 9 January 1997. The white liberals on the school
board included businessman Leonard Kasle and United Automobile Workers (UAW)
)
attorney Abraham L. Zwerdling. On Zwerdling and other personalities on the school
board, see William R. Grant, “Community Control vs. School Integration in Detroit,” The
y . g , e
Public Interest 24 (Summer 1971): 62-79.
.
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy
g y
7
13
Mirel, Rise and Fall, 65, 253-58. The
. board of education also redirected the e
school construction and repair programs to the previously neglected black
k
neighborhoods. It recruited and trained black teachers from the South and imposed a
a
moratorium on the purchase of textbooks while it fought publishers over racial bias
s
and generated its own teaching materials. The school board, with the support of the
e
Detroit Federation of Teachers, called a halt to the policy of assigning teachers and
d
principals on the basis of race, and it implemented a policy of affirmative action for
r
contractors doing business with the school board. Bushnell, interview; Johnson,
. , ,
interview..
14
Mirel, ,Rise and Fall,,259-61..
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
8 Michigan Historical Review
g
15
Mirel, Rise and Fall, 261-63, 301-5. For the Sherrill School controversy and lawsuit,
see boxes 8-11, Ernest Goodman Papers, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs (hereafter
-
ALUA), Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
16
Mirel, Rise andFall, 308-13. Since the mid-1960s, Stokely Carmichael, leader of the
- e
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, had been comparing the impoverished
d
and powerless situation of black people in America to the dependent and deformed
d
condition of Third World countries under U.S. imperialism. See Stokely Carmichael,
y ,
“Toward Black Liberation,” Massachusetts Review 7 (Autumn 1966).
owar ac , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 9
g y
The 1967 uprising also created a rift in the leadership of the black
community. Black nationalists like the Reverend Albert Cleage, Jr.,
,
demanded black control of black schools and criticized established civil
rights leaders like Arthur Johnson who remained committed to the
e
NAACP goal of complete integration of black people into American
society. Cleage and others accused black school board members Remus
Robinson and Arthur Johnson of having allowed themselves to be co-
o
opted by the white liberals on the board. Together with the white
parents’ entrenched defense of white schools, this split in the black
sp n e ack
leadership weakened the liberals on the school board.19
Notwithstanding these developments, the liberal leadership of the
board of education still pursued desegregation. Despite the 1969 passage
p g ga on. esp e e passage
17
Michigan Public Act 244 (1969).
18
Mirel, Rase and Fall, 308-9, 326, 347; quotation from Johnson, interview.
19 , q , w.
Mirel, ,Rise and Fall, ,332-35..
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
100 Michigan Historical Review
M g
20
William R. Grant, “The Detroit School Case: An Historical Overview,” Wayne Raw
Review 21, no. 3 (March 1975): 854-57; Johnson, interview; Mirel, Rise and Fall,338-45. .
, . , , ,
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 11
g y
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
12 Michigan Historical Review
g w
Education (New York: The New Press, 1996). The trial transcripts of Bradley v. Milliken contain
much valuable information on the Detroit school system and on residency and race in
Detroit. They are in twenty-seven volumes at the Wayne State University Law School library.
For the Detroit school system, see Jeffrey Mirel’s excellent study, The Rise and Fall of an Urban
n
School System. For the political background to the lawsuit, see Grant, “Detroit School Case.”
For a narrative of the lawsuit by one of the NAACP attorneys, see Paul R. Dimond, Beyond
Busing: Inside the Challenge to Urban Segregation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985).
Eleanor P. Wolf, Trial and Error The Detroit School Segregation Case (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1981) criticizes the methodology and conclusions of the sociology
gy y
undergirding the plaintiffs’ case.
25
Grant, “Detroit School Case,” 858; Dimond, Byond Busing, 31; Macomb Daily, 25
, , , y g, ,
April 1972.
p 26
Roth quotations in Grant, “Detroit School Case,” 859-63; Dimond, Byond Busing,36.
o quo a ons n , , , y g, .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 13
g y
I had a special meeting with the CCBE, and I told them, “This case
e
is going down the tubes! You can’t win. Judge Roth is bound by the
g g . u ge o s oun y e
27
Ritchie, interview.
28
Grant believed that Judge Roth experienced the same revelation, and Ritchie thought
so too. It was possible to win Roth to an appreciation of the plight of both black and white
students in the city because, in Ritchie’s words, “Roth came out of the same working-class
g ss
background as me.” Grant, “Detroit School Case,” 863, 863 n. 52; Ritchie, interview
g . , , , . , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
14 Michigan Historical Review
M g w
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 15
g y
31
The president of CCBE, Aubrey Short, warned, “We are not not trying to force
e
busing on [suburban] schools, but if the court says busing must be the rule in Detroit,
then as part of that solution we will . . . consider asking the court to include metro-wide
e
busing. . . .” At the same time he coyly invited the suburbs to join the coalition against
busing. “If they want to help the fight against cross-boundary busing . . . [the suburbs]
should be backing our efforts.” He went on to characterize his group as firmly opposed
to liberal plans for integration. “If the suburbs want to help us fight the NAACP busing
g
plan . . . they can help with support, not by lulling the people to think we are a bunch of
f
liberals . . . which we are not by any point of imagination[sic].” Macomb Daily,13 July 1971.
To the consternation of parents in Warren, Short took the occasion to reach out in an n
ironic gesture of racial solidarity to the whites who had already fled the city: “Maybe now
w
the suburbs will take heed of our dilemma in Detroit and support our fight against the
NAACP suit.” Macomb Daily, 16 July 1971. Again, when the CCBE announced its
intention to press for metropolitan-wide busing in the event that the judge ruled that the
e
Detroit school system was intentionally segregated, Aubrey Short appealed to suburban
n
voters to join the antibusing movement: “We also believe a child should attend the school
nearest to his home, and I think that’s what the people in the suburbs want . . . so if they
... y
want to help, they should be backing our effort.” Macomb Daily,13 July 1971.
32
Detroit Public Schools Community Relations Papers, folders 7-9, box 7, ALUA;
, , , ;
Macomb Daily,16 July 1971.
y, y .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
16 Michigan Historical Review
g w
Detroit school system was segregated de jure. The second came nine
months later on 14 June 1972 when the judge ordered the two-way busing
g
of 780,000 students in Detroit and fifty-two suburban school districts,
including all of Warren. A third important date, which brought closure and
relief to the citizens of Warren, was the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling two
g o
years later, on 25 July 1974, striking down Judge Roth’s busing order.
y
Already in the spring and summer of 1971 observers in Warren were
e
following the desegregation trial in Detroit with increasing concern and
d
disbelief. “It will take an army to enforce that kind of a ruling if the court
was foolish enough to try and force integration on suburban school
l
districts,” one citizen told the Macomb Daily. A suburban attorney
y
predicted, “Any day now, the motion to include the 87 districts [it turned
d
out to be 52 suburban districts] will be entertained— in what could
become this nation’s most historic school desegregation battle.”33
Among the first to consider the changes that cross-district busing
would bring to Warren was Mitch Kehetian, the head of the Macomb
Daily’s Warren desk. Kehetian deplored busing, and he became an
important voice in the antibusing movement. Although it would
overstate the case to say that the Macomb Daily created the antibusing
movement in Macomb County, the paper clearly lined up editorially on
the antibusing side of the struggle. It kept the topic in front of the news
stories when there were no new developments to report. It created a
special busing section in the letters to the editor. It also took care to
. o
announce upcoming antibusing rallies.34
ann 4
Just as the editors of the Macomb Daily used the busing issue to sell
papers, Warren’s local politicians used the busing issue to enhance their
careers. It offered an opportunity for generalized us-versus-them
electioneering. The busing panic hit Warren during its 1971 mayoral
l
campaign and became a major issue in the contest between the
p g e
33
Richard Sabaugh, interview by author, tape recording, Mt. Clemens, Mich., 1 3
, . , ., 3
February 1997; Macomb Daily, 13, 14, 16 July 1971.
34
Macomb Daily, 4 October 1971. The liberal Northeast Interfaith Center for Racial
Justice investigated the Macomb Daily’s coverage of the busing issue. The study concluded
that “the Macomb Daily has lost its objectivity” and that the result of the paper’s coverage
e
would be “a continuation of the antibusing hysteria. . . . We think the end result will be
violence. . . . The Macomb Daily is yelling ‘fire’ to a large audience and when these frightened
people begin to react, then those who used this fear to sell newspapers and/ or build political
cal
careers will share responsibility for their acts.” Sally Chalgian, interview by author, tape
recording, Warren, Mich., 10 November 1995; “The Message Is Violence: A Case Study of
the Macomb Daily September 1971 June 1972,” unpublished paper prepared by the Northeast
Interfaith Center for Racial Justice Media Task Force (copy in author’s possession).
n er a py p .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 17
g y
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
18 Michigan Historical Review
g w
l&v*;
of the Macomb Daily
I
courtesy
Photo
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 19
g y
segregated. This increased the likelihood that the judge would order cross-
s
district busing. Montgomery’s petitions hit the street in the midst of the
e
furor. That night, he handed them out at an impromptu antibusing rally at
Fitzgerald High School, on the city’s south side. He volunteered his law
office as the drop-off point for completed petitions. A local media
personality, Lou Gordon, invited Montgomery to appear on his television
show, and a roving NBC News crew in Cleveland picked up the story and
gave it national coverage. George Montgomery thus went from an
n
anonymous city council candidate to a national spokesman against busing
at the very moment that the issue exploded in Warren. He placed fourth in
the council race and went on to become a circuit court judge.38
The political strength of antibusing sentiment was confirmed in the
1972 primary election, which included a county advisory referendum on
busing. Confirming the growing unpopularity of busing, the referendum
m
was worded, “Do you approve of the busing of students across school
l
district lines?” Warren’s precinct tallies on the measure ranged between
n
82 percent and 99 percent negative. With these numbers, it is no wonder
r
that the issue imposed certain restrictions on politicians. Virtually no
local political leader came out openly in support of busing in Warren.
For, if “busing was a huge horse that many people rode,” it was equally
yp p , q y
capable of bucking the rider.39
p g . 9
38
On 17 October 1971 Montgomery presented his antibusing petitions with more
than fifty-two thousand signatures to Congressman O’Hara. George E. Montgomery,
interview by author, tape recording, Warren, Mich., 25 January 1997; Macomb Daily,17, 18
October 1971. George Montgomery was not the only politician to fashion a political
career out of the busing issue. Although Lillian Klimecki Dannis was already a forceful
personality on the city council, she consolidated her reputation as a no-nonsense defender
r
of Warren’s families with her work on the busing issue. She and four other women
founded one of Warren’s antibusing groups, Warren Residents Acting Positively (WRAP).
The group, formed in July 1972, grew out of a year of antibusing activism by its
s
organizers. WRAP made a solemn pledge never to become a sounding board for any
politician, but Dannis, as an organizer, was an exception. Her political standing in Warren
n
went up because of the community outreach that WRAP did on the busing issue. Dannis
went on to serve as city treasurer of Warren. Geri Suma, telephone interview by author,
,
tape recording, 11 March 1997; Macomb Daily,18 July 1972.
p 39
Returns on the busing advisory in the 1972 Canvassed Records, Macomb County
Clerk’s Office, Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Joseph M Snyder, a Democratic state
representative from St. Clair Shores, was an exception to this rule in his unruffled
pronouncements on the issue. See correspondence between Snyder and John Cardinal
Dearden, in Dearden Papers. Some local politicians were able to duck the issue. Former
City Councilman Donald Binkowski refused to answer questions on the subject of busing
when he ran for circuit judge. Donald Binkowski, interview by author, tape recording,
, y , p g,
Detroit, Mich., 2 January 1997.
, ., .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
20 Michigan Historical Review
g
We’d get an awful lot of irate phone calls from our membership
in Warren. And you had to listen to them, and they were so
o
emotional! The story that was most repeated was, “I lived in
n
Detroit. I came out to the suburbs for good schools. I paid my
y
taxes. . . .” They might have accepted one-way busing of black
kids from Detroit. “But taking my kids from my neighborhood
d
school that I fought so hard to get and why I built a house out
here, taking them and moving them back to all the dangers in
g
Detroit. . .. ..” Well,, you could understand the emotion.. 411
..
40
Irving Bluestone and Douglas Fraser, interview by author, tape recording, Detroit,
one an oug as raser, y , p g, ,
Mich., 3 April 1997.
41
Grant, “Detroit School Case,” 865-66. O n the Roth “hanging,” Macomb Daily, 31
1
July 1972; Ritchie, interview..
y ,
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 21
g on roversy
42
“SOC Fights SEMCOG, Bulletin #4— October 29, 1971,” in Dearden Papers,
Macomb Daily,1, 2 November 1971. A semipublic authority, SEMCOG was formed by
state act in 1967 to share resources and spur regional economic development It
conducted studies on regionally coordinated transportation, water, and sewage-treatment
projects. It also processed federal HUD and block grant fund requests. Macomb County
joined SEMCOG in 1970 and then pulled out again in early 1972. Macomb County didy
not rejoin SEMCOG until 1986. Sec boxes 38, 39, 42, SEMCOG Papers, Part 2, AEUA.
This fear of regionalism resonated strongly with George Wallace supporters. The 1974
4
Macomb County convention of Wallace’s American Independent Party (AIP) even
featured “Metropolitanism” as its main theme. A leaflet circulated among the Macomb
County Wallace supporters denounced “METRO-GOVERNMENT” as a nefarious b
conspiracy. Strangely, it was a conspiracy with a mailing address. According to the AIP
convention program, “METRO-GOVERNMENT . . . IS A GROUP of national and
international organizations located at 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois.” This group
p
was guided by an “INTERNATIONALIST PLAN FOR COMPLETE WORLD
DOMINATION.” AIP was an extreme example, but “running against regionalism” was D
becoming part of the political culture in Warren, just like “running against Detroit.” See
e
“American Independent Party of Macomb County Convention—-June 8, 1974,” in
onven on une , , n
Macomb County 1974 folder, box 38, SEMCOG Papers.
, , apers.
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
22 Michigan Historical Review
g w
43
Macomb Daily, 1 December 1971. A Korean War veteran, Lobsinger worked as a
a
clerk for the city of Detroit. He was a tireless organizer of racist and anticommunist
t
demonstrations from the 1960s well into the 1990s. His roots were on Detroit’s east side,
a neighborhood with a history of right-wing activism that stretched back at least to the
e
1940s. Lobsinger grafted his own conservative Catholicism onto the anticommunism of
f
the John Birch Society. By the late 1960s he had organized Breakthrough, a consciously
right-wing group that attacked antiwar and civil rights demonstrations as well as liberal
p g l
Catholic priests.
.
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 23
g y
44
“They were massing outside of the gates, to keep the people from going in,”
recalls Bluestone. “What we did . . . was to order them to go to work on the basis that
they were in violation of the contract, in violation of the UAW constitution, in violation
of the law and, in any event, that the UAW was supportive of busing. . . . We got a lot of
f
‘Boos.’” Less than half of the 650-man shift went in to work, and management closed the
plant for the day. See Macomb Daily,31 August, 7, 9, 11 September 1971; Bluestone and
y. y, g , , , p
Fraser,, interview..
45
Suma,, interview..
46
Ibid..
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
24 Michigan Historical Review
g w
47
Suma, interview; quotation from Richard Sabaugh, interview; Ralph Liberate,
telephone interview by author, 1 April 1997. The prominence of women in Warren’s
antibusing movement held true in other antibusing movements of the late 1960s and early
1970s as well. Irene McCabe headed NAG (National Action Group) in Pontiac. In
Boston, Louise Day Hicks and Pixie Palladino headed ROAR (Restore Our Alienated
Rights). In Warren some groups had male leaders, but the five founding members of
WRAP were all women (as was typical), and only one of them had a career outside of the
home. Community acceptance of women as leaders of the antibusing protest movement
has been remarked on in studies of other cities, as has the fact that the antibusing crusade
seemed to empower these women. Ronald Formisano argues that in Boston the
antibusing movement provided conservative women with a traditional but activist vision
of their role in society during the early 1970s, when the women’s liberation movement
influenced many women. Lillian Rubin’s work on the antibusing controversy in the
working-class community of Richmond, California, notes that the traditional values of the
e
antibusing women did not impede their leadership. They were secure in their roles as
housewives and yet willing to go to “heroic” lengths to protect their children. Ronald
Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race,Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 146-50; Lillian B. Rubin, Busing and
d
Backlash:White Against White in a California School District (Berkeley: University of California
ns e n a a orn a y y a
Press, 1972), 60-61.
, , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 25
g y
Lee claimed the credit when twenty thousand students boycotted Warren
y y n
schools three days later.48
The following night more angry speeches filled the air in a meeting
g
at Carter Junior High School in Warren. A reporter for the Macomb Daily
y
was struck by the fact that “some of the loudest cheers from the
e
audience were for racially tinged remarks.” County Commissioner Robert
t
Verkulen, for one, took up the “minority” theme: “This country is
supposed to be based on majority rule, but a minority of ten percent is
dictating to us, the majority. We are being discriminated against.” O n the
e
other hand, the moderate Warren City Councilman Floyd Underwood
got a round of applause when he urged, “If there’s enough money to bus
kids, then I say we put that money into the deprived areas to bring about
g t
equality. Give them new buildings and good teachers.”49
q 9
In the confusion that prevailed during the busing panic, some
e
groups tried to mobilize support by spreading rumors by telephone.
.
Signs were posted in public places claiming that busing was already under
way, although Judge Roth had not ruled on the remedy in the lawsuit.
Trying to calm the alarm even as he ran to keep in front of the issue,
Mayor Bates set up a rumor-control center and urged calm, as did the
editors of the Macomb Daily. O n 2 October Mayor Bates and four
members of the city council left for Washington, D.C., to deliver
postcards and antibusing petitions with more than forty thousand
signatures to their congressman, James O’Hara. The delegation also tried
to confer with Louise Day Hicks, formerly a leader of the antibusing
movement in Boston. Representative Hicks had introduced a bill in the
House six months earlier (the “Nondiscriminatory Education Act”)
prohibiting “the forcing of a child to leave his neighborhood school to
attend another more distant school because of his race,, color,, creed, ,
religion, or national origin.” 50
0
The flames of hysteria were fanned by a headline in the Macomb Daily
y
of 5 October to the effect that Judge Roth had ordered a “Metro
Integration Plan . . . To Include All-White-Suburban Districts. . . .” Only
in its conclusion did the story state that Judge Roth had not, in fact,
ordered a metro district plan. Nor had he even suggested that metrowide
e
busing would be his ruling. What he had done was to order the Detroit
School Board and the State Board of Education to submit alternativee
48
Macomb Daily, 28 September, 1971.
49
Macomb Daily, 28, 30 September, 2 October 1971.
50
Macomb Daily, 28, 30 September, 3 October 1971.
y, , p , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
26 Michigan Historical Review
g w
il >
Wr-?
Busing protest meeting
*-* V?
of the Macomb Daily
?S***:
courtesy
Photo
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 27
g y
plans for districtwide and for cross-district busing. Still, the news story
y
heightened the antibusing furor. Ad hoc groups held impromptu rallies
s
in high school auditoriums and on the campus of Macomb Community
51 p y
College throughout October.
1
During this confusing period some antibusing groups lasted only a
short time. Some changed names or merged with other groups. The
e
Silent Majority was the name of a group that appeared shordy after the
Fitzgerald High School rally, only to join Save Our Children (SOC) a day
later. Another short-lived Warren group, Residents Opposing Busing
g
(ROB), favored working through Congress and the courts to oppose
busing, rather than resorting to violence or boycotting schools. In March
yet another group, the Warren branch of the National Action Group
p
(Warren-NAG), joined the crowded field of antibusing organizations.
Some groups came on the scene later, during the second infusion of
f
energy into the antibusing movement when Judge Roth ordered cross-
district busing in the summer of 1972. Warren Residents Acting
Positively (WRAP) and Kids Attend Their Schools (KATS) both date
e
from July 1972. In spite of the potential for rivalry, most of the groups
s
agreed in principle to maintain unity. “We were all involved in this
52
lawsuit and we all had the same objective,” remembers one activist.
2
This mobilization against busing received the blessing of local school
officials. In early October the superintendent of schools in neighboring
g
Roseville announced, “I will take any legal steps that can be taken. . . .
I’m against busing students out of Roseville.” The Fraser school district
t
board of education sent parents a letter declaring that it “never has and is
s
not now planning to bus students out of the district.” The president of
f
the school board for the Warren consolidated district promised the
board’s commitment to “a community school concept,” adding that “we
would pursue this . . . through the legal means available.” The director of
community relations for the Fitzgerald school district reiterated the
district’s “commit[ment] to the neighborhood school concept.” The
g p . e
51
Macomb Daily,6 October 1971.
52
In an effort to coordinate the legal strategy of the suburban antibusing movement,
a new group, Tri-County Citizens, came together in early December 1971. Led by three
Macomb County lawyers, this group took on the task of critiquing the constitutional
reasoning behind the expected cross-district busing order. O n 15 March 1972, prior to
o
hearing arguments on the districtwide and cross-district busing plans, Judge Roth allowed
d
Tri-County Citizens to join the newly created group of suburban interveners in the case.
Macomb Daily,30 September, 5, 6 October 1971; 16 March, 18 July 1972; quotation from
, , , y q
Suma,, interview. .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
28 Michigan Historical Review
g
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 29
g y
The other speakers, Irene McCabe, Brooks Patterson, and Philip Lee
(chairman of SOC), tried to distance themselves from Ritchie’s reasoning.
.
“Misery likes company, so white Detroiters drag us into it!” protested Lee.
.
Lee said he didn’t believe that a black student would do better in schooll
just because he was sitting next to a white student: “We don’t owe the
blacks a thing and it is time they learned to live together.”58
ac 8
These meetings kept the busing issue in the public eye and infused
new energy into the movement. A more ambitious effort was Irenee
McCabe’s quixotic march to Washington, D.C., in support of an antibusing
constitutional amendment. NAG announced this action in late February
1972. Scheduled to depart Pontiac on 15 March and to rally at the Capitol
. p l
57
Ritchie, interview. .
58
Macomb Daily, 20 October 1971 .
y, .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
30 Michigan Historical Ret'ieu'
g
59
Macomb Daily, 28 February, 17, 27 March, 3 April 1972.
60 , , , p .
Macomb Daily, 3 April 1972.
61
Macomb Daily, 14, 21, 22 April 1972.
aco y, , , p .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
31
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
8I
Less than two months later, on 14 June 1972, Judge Roth issued a
ruling requiring metropolitan-wide racial integration of primary and
secondary schools. He named a panel to develop a final plan for busing
fifty-three of the eighty-three school districts (counting Detroit) within
n
the metropolitan area. The total number of students enrolled in the
e
affected school districts was 780,000, one-third of the public school
l
pupils in the state. Roth also specified the clusters into which the fifty-
three school districts would be grouped. Residents of Warren’s six
x
school districts learned that their elementary and high schools would be
paired with Northeastern, Osborn, Denby, Finney, and Kettering
schools in Detroit. There would be two-way busing (Detroit children to
Warren and Warren children to Detroit). Community leaders expressed
shock and dismay. They issued statements denouncing Judge Roth for
handing down a busing order even though Congress had just passed an
eighteen-month moratorium on busing as part of an education bill. No
busing was imminent, however, for Judge Roth’s order was certainly
headed for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and from there, regardless
pp , g s
of who won, to the Supreme Court.62
2
As the anxiety level fluctuated from its height in the fall of 1971 to
relative calm a few months later and then to renewed intensity as the
judge prepared his busing order in the summer of 1972, a few voices in
n
Warren urged an open mind on the busing issue. The Northeast
t
Interfaith Center for Racial Justice (NEIFCRJ) made the main attempt to
o
organize liberal elements in Macomb County. This church-based group
grew out of the Warren-Centerline Human Relations Council in 1968. A
member of the Interfaith Center recalled that although the busing
g
controversy isolated the liberals, they tried to respond by founding a
group called Peaceful Schools. They charged the Macomb Daily with
irresponsibly stirring up antibusing sentiment. They produced bumper
stickers urging nonviolence in the schools and released statements to thee
press calling for patience and calm.63
p g p . 3
62
Macomb Daily, 9, 15 June 1972; Joe T. Darden et al., Detroit: Race and Uneven
Development (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 228; Dimond, Beyond Busing,80-87.
eve o63
Herbert Lowe, telephone interview by author, 20 May 1997. Founded in 1968,
NEIFCRJ built up a mailing list of 979 names and conducted nine seminar sessions with
h
a combined participation of 278 in 1971. By 1972 the Northeast Interfaith Center had a
a
membership of 95 individuals, six Protestant churches, and five Catholic churches. Sally
Chalgian, interview by author, tape recording, 10 November 1995; membership records of
f
the Northeast Interfaith Center for Racial Justice, 1971, 1972 (copy in author’s
possession). Three of the Protestant churches (but none of the Catholic churches)
possess on .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy
g y
33
officially supporting the Interfaith Center were in Warren. For the Interfaith Center’s
criticism of the Macomb Daily see the Racial Justice Media Task Force, “The Message Is
Violence,” copy in author’s possession; “Action Centers Combat ‘Institutional’ Racism,”
"
Warren Community News, 17-21 December 1968; “Religious Group Endorses Busing,”
g,
Daily Tribune,15 August 1972; Sally Chalgian, interview by author, 21 April 1997.
y 64
Lange, interview; “William H. Pennow School, September 30, 1971,” in Dearden
g , . , , , n
Papers.
65
“Policy Statement Regarding Enrollment in Catholic Schools,” in Dearden Papers;
see also John T. McGreevy, Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth
Century Urban North (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 238.
y g y g , , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
34 Michigan Historical Review
g
Chart I 67
Total Attendance in Macomb County Catholic Schools Located in Public School Districts
y
Subject to the Busing Order
g r
isoooi--------
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
1967 1968 196969 1970 1971 1972 1973 3 1974 4 1975 1976 1977 19788 11979
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 35
g y
68
Macomb Daily, 16 March 1971; telephone conversation with Roman Godzak,
,
Archivist of the Archdiocese of Detroit, January 1996.
69
The cardinal suggested an approach involving “not . . . a series of discourses from
the pulpit. The discussion route is the better one. There may come a time when we will
need to use the pulpit for this purpose. But at the present time the better course seems to
o
promote discussion.” He hoped that by consolidating Catholic opinion among the laity in
the parish council and its committees, “the work then can move out through other circles
s
. . . so that people begin to talk about the issue in a serious, mature way.” In an effort to
help establish institutions that could carry on the work of antiracist education in Macomb
County suburbs, the Archdiocese also gave financial support to the Northeast Interfaith
Center for Racial Justice. Catholic parishes always housed the offices of the Interfaith
h
Center. “Archdiocese of Detroit, June 11, 1974,” in Dearden Papers; Chalgian, interview;
“Churches Fight Racism in Suburbs,” Detroit Free Press,14 September 1968; McGreevy,
, , ,
Parish Boundaries, 238.
70
“Archdiocese of Detroit, Busing 1974-76,” file 25, box 1, Dearden Administrative
, e
Papers, Archives of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Detroit, Mich.
, , , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
36 Michigan Historical Review
g w
somewhere, some way, some how you will begin to understand people.
.
For, candidly, at least at the moment, you simply do not.”71
,
The Catholic Church was not the only voice calling for racial
tolerance in the suburbs in the early 1970s. The UAW had a history of
trying to reduce racial tensions going as far back as the hate strikes of the
1940s in Detroit’s war-production factories. During the early stages of
the busing controversy, the union president, Leonard Woodcock, issued
a public statement in support of busing. It “is an inadequate solution but
given our segregated housing patterns, busing within reasonable limits
appears the only way that integration can be brought about.” In other
statements, the union took the position that the busing issue was for the
courts to decide and that more attention needed to be paid to the larger
p g
issue of defining goals for quality education.72
2
The UAW leadership thus publicly supported busing. But the union
found it difficult to lead its members effectively when the issue involved
d
racial tolerance in the community instead of the workplace. In
n
confronting the Pontiac antibusing wildcat strikers in the fall of 1971, the
union’s GM Department tried to dissuade members from resorting to
o
work stoppages to express their opposition to busing, in part because of
the union’s contractual obligations to the General Motors Company.
But, with the exception of this incident and a couple of local
membership meetings in the Pontiac area where Irving Bluestone spoke
on the busing question, the top leadership was unable to reach many of
its white members in the Detroit suburbs. George Merrelli, the union’s
regional director in Macomb County, took a hands-off attitude. A few
months earlier he had embarrassed himself by failing to convince a
roomful of local UAW officers living in Warren that they should vote
against a grass-roots referendum renouncing HUD money tied to
measures encouraging black residency in Warren.73
3
Douglas Fraser recalls that on the general topic of racism the union
made continual efforts to educate the membership. The programs at the
e
FDR Camp near Port Huron and at other education centers around the
country were racially integrated, and local union leaders who attended
those retreats learned the UAW policy on fighting racism. But Fraser
p y g g .
71
Ibid..
72
For the racial strife during World War II, see Dominic Capeci, Jr., Race 'Relations in
Wartime Detroit (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984); Woodcock quotation in
p y , q n
Macomb Daily,5 October 1971.
73
Bluestone and Fraser, interview. O n George Merrelli’s debate with Richard
d
Sabaugh, see Riddle, “HUD and the Open Housing Controversy,” 26.
g , , g , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 37
g sy
remembers that the members had different attitudes about segregation at work
k
and in the community: “Brendan Sexton was our Education Director and he
e
used to have these surveys of attitudes before and after these educational
programs. And to the question, Do you believe in equality in the workplace?’
the response was ‘absolutely!’ on seniority, wages, etc. But then you get
into the more personal questions, ‘What about in your neighborhood?’ and,
,
of course, this was fifty years ago, but they drew the line there.” 74
4
Educating the membership on the union’s general policy of
f
antiracism was one thing. Trying to provide leadership on the hot topic
of cross- dis trict busing was another. Douglas Fraser confesses, “There
are certain issues that you ran into where there was so much passion that
t
you just got overwhelmed. . . .” The top leadership might take the most
liberal positions, but the top leadership did not have to stand for election
n
by the rank and file. “We were sort of immune,” he notes. “We could say
y
all these things and pass all these resolutions,” but the officers of a local
l
union were in a different position. “You had to look at their situation,
where they’re looking at an election in a year or two. They might step out
t
and take some risk, but they’re not going to be suicidal. In terms of
f
getting it down on the shop floor, that would be a risk that, I guess,
, , g ,
people were unwilling to take.”75
p p 5
The antiracist principles of the top leadership meant little to
members whose local leadership was unwilling to act on those principles.
The union’s ability to exert its will on issues of racial equality inside the
plants did not extend to the neighborhoods. As Fraser remembers, going
all the way back to the hate strikes of the 1940s “all of us instinctively
y
knew that [on issues of race in the shops], if you bent, if you showed any
y
semblance of prejudice or bigotry, the issue would be lost.” But racial
integration in the community was a different matter. “We didn’t have the
.
same influence that we did in the workplace.”76
6
Like the Vietnam War, cross-district busing helped to disorganize
the Democratic party in southeastern Michigan. Both issues split the
e
party’s leaders from its rank and file. The antiwar Democrats moved the
party leaders to the left while the issue of busing moved the rank and file
e
the other way. On the issue of busing, Democratic party leaders tried to
address racial integration in ways that reached out to the party’s black
constituents without alienating the suburban white working class. This
g g . s
74
Bluestone and Fraser,, interview..
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid..
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
38 Michigan Historical Review
g
77
Macomb Daily, 30 September, 1, 5, 27 October 1971; 9 March 1972; Dudley Buffa,
Union Power and American Democraty: The UAW' and the Democratic Party, 1935-72 (Ann
n
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), 191. One illustration of the gulf that
separated the state party leaders from Macomb County’s rank-and-file Democrats was the
speech that Senator Philip Hart gave on 16 October 1971 at the fifth annual Phil Hart t
Day dinner hosted by the Macomb County Democratic party in Mount Clemens. A
revered figure in the national Democratic party, Hart had a sterling reputation for honesty
esty
and integrity. Coming directly to the topic of busing in his remarks at the dinner, Hart
t
acknowledged the political and practical weaknesses of busing and attested to the sincerity
y
of those who favored neighborhood schools out of concern for their children’s safety. He
stated that no one should be “accused of bigotry” for reluctance to have his or her child
bused “to a school where the education is the same or worse than the one within walking
distance or if you think the new environment might be hostile.” But there were certain
moral lines that he could not bring himself to cross, and he went on to declare simply that
t
“racial segregation in public schools is wrong,” and that busing was justified “on those
occasions when a constitutional guarantee [to equal education] can’t be delivered any
other way.” The applause was sparse, and the Phil Hart Day dinner was never held again.
Three days later, a meeting of Roseville-NAG voted to mount a recall campaign against
Hart, who had polled overwhelmingly in those precincts in the last election. The recall
campaign fizzled, but Hart’s attempt to reason with Macomb County Democrats over the
busing question also failed. Macomb Daily,18 October 1971; Dudley Buffa, Union Power and
nd
American Democraty: The UM If 7 and the Democratic Party, 1972-83 (Ann Arbor: University of
of
Michigan Press, 1984), 7-10; Michael O’Brien, Philip Hart: The Conscience of the Senate (East
- t
Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995), 185-88.
ans ng g y , , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 39
g y
78
Macomb Daily,15 May 1972. On O’Hara’s soul-searching with regard to the busing
g g g
issue,, see Buffa,,Union Power . .. .. 1935-72,
.
190-91.
, .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
40 Michigan Historical'Review
4 g w
The busing crisis led many Democrats to vote against the party’s
y
standard-bearer..79
Meanwhile, in other primaries several liberal Macomb County
Democratic incumbents scrambled to stay in office. N o political office
seeker was too great or too humble to escape antibusing anger. One
e
teachers’ union organizer with moderate views on busing lost an
election for precinct delegate in neighboring St. Clair Shores even
n
though he was unopposed: “I was running unopposed and I got a call
l
at maybe ten or eleven the night before Election Day. The person said,
‘I understand that you’re in favor of cross-district busing.’ And I said,
,
‘I don’t know that I’m in favor of it. I think it might be one of the
e
ways to improve education for all the kids.’ That next morning, they
y
were out there at 7 o’clock with their write-in stickers. And I got beat . . .
80 . ...
probably four- or five-to-one.”
p 0
Initially Michigan’s Republicans had been as startled as the Democratss
over the busing issue. When asked his reaction to the possibility of cross-
district busing in September 1971, Republican State Representative David
Serotkin from Mount Clemens sidestepped the issue, “This is not really a
state legislative issue, and I cannot speak on it. . . . I’m learning about it just
as my constituents are.” Republican State Chairman William McLaughlin
took a moderate stand when the busing controversy burst on the scene: “If
f
the election were held today, it would be the number one issue. . . . My
great hope is that it comes out of the political arena and we get more
reasons and less rhetoric.” Although Republican Governor William
Milliken opposed busing, he also opposed an antibusing constitutional
amendment, and he went out of his way to slam George Wallace as a racist
an e wen ou o s way g t
demagogue. 81
1
In the end the Republicans could not ignore the political opportunity
y
that busing offered. Nixon had announced in the spring of 1970 that
although his Justice Department would enforce school desegregation in those
districts (mosdy in the South) where segregation was de jure, a matter of law
and local ordinance, he would not attack de facto (customary) school
l
segregation resulting from housing patterns. The impEcation was that Nixon
segrega on resu ng rom ous ng pa . p
79
Wallace quotation in Macomb Daily, 15 May 1972; McGovern quotation in Macomb
a on n a y, y
Daily, 12 May 1972.
y 80
Lange, interview.
81
Serotkin quotation in Alacomb Daily, 1 October 1971; McLaughlin quotation in
Macomb Daily, 27 October 1971. For Milliken’s position on busing, see “Milliken Blasts
s
Wallace Tactics,” Macomb Daily, 17 March 1972; and “None Pleased by Milliken Busing
arc ; y g
View,” Macomb Daily, 3 March 1972.
, y, .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 41
g y
intended to let places like Warren off the hook. O f course this did not
t
prevent Judge Roth from finding de jure segregation in the Detroit school
system. And both the Sixth District Court of Appeals and the Supreme
e
Court upheld this aspect of Judge Roth’s rulings. But Nixon’s statement
communicated his reluctance to press the matter. Similarly, Nixon’s
s
December 1970 statement, following the HUD controversy over open
n
housing in Warren, that “it is not the policy of this government to use
the power of the federal government or federal funds . . . in ways not
required by law for forced integration of the suburbs” implied that he
e
intended to move slowly on residential segregation between cities and
82 y g g
suburbs..
On 17 May 1972, musing over the upcoming campaign, Nixon
remarked in a memo to John Ehrlichman, “Lead in on the busing issue
on a state and local basis. . . . Hit busing hard in Michigan.” Nixon
n
tried to make his opposition to busing known in southeastern
n
Michigan. The Macomb Daily often accommodated him, as in the story
it pieced together out of a letter that the president wrote to U.S.
Representative William S. Broomfield (R-Royal Oak) congratulating
him on his antibusing amendment to the Higher Education Act. These
statements assured many of Warren’s antibusing Democrats that the
g e
president was on their side.83
p 3
Following the 1972 presidential primary and the national
conventions, the gravity of the Democratic party’s situation in
n
Macomb County began to sink in. Democratic party regulars found
d
themselves in an impossible bind: George McGovern’s nomination,
g ,
82
O n Nixon’s pronouncements concerning de jure and de facto segregation, see New
w
York Times, 25 March 1970. On Nixon’s statement concerning “forced integration of the
suburbs,” see Detroit News, 11 December 1970; Riddle, “Reagan Democrats,” chapter 2;
and Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Hand: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed
g g
America (New York: Vintage, 1992), 209.
83
Nixon’s quotation from “President re Ehrlichman file,” Ehrlichman Files, folder
r
3, box 24 (release of papers contested), Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National
Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Thanks to Melvin Small for this reference. On
n
Nixon’s letter to Broomfield, see Macomb Daily, 29 June 1972. Representative
Broomfield’s amendment had no bearing on the Bradley v. Milliken lawsuit because it did
d
not apply to busing cases already in federal court. By the 1972 election, the state’s
Republicans had decided where their advantage lay. They tried to attract antibusing
Democrats by adopting an antibusing plank in the party’s platform. The wording of the
resolution did not address the question of the tactics of opposition to busing. It merely
recorded the party’s opposition: “While we believe in and will continue to work for equal
educational opportunity for all children, we believe that this cannot be achieved, and
, d
should not be sought, by forced busing programs.” Macomb Daily,12 June 1972.
g , y gp g . y, .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
42 Michigan Historical Review
g w
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 43
g y
86
Quoted in Dimond, Beyond Busing,110-14.
87
Some experts on desegregation maintain that Bradley v. Milliken heralded the beginning of
the end of school desegregation: “Rejection of city-suburban desegregation brought an end to
the period of rapidly increasing school desegregation for black students, which began in
n
1965. No longer was the most segregation found among schools in the same community; the
starkest racial separations occurred between city and suburban school districts within a
metropolitan area. But Milliken made this segregation almost untouchable. By 1991, African
n
Americans in Michigan were more segregated than those of any other state.” Orfield and
g g y . e and
Eaton, Dismantling Desegregation,12.
, g g g , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
44 Michigan Historical Review
g w
George Bushnell, Jr., the original attorney for the Detroit School
Board in the Bradley v. Milliken lawsuit, agrees that the busing
g
controversy had an immediate negative effect on the city, through
h
white flight. According to Bushnell, this created the conditions for a
a
bitter and uncooperative relationship between Detroit, under the
administration of the city’s first black mayor, Coleman Young, and the
rest of southeastern Michigan. The cross-district busing controversy
y
“confirmed in the minds of the black community what they had already
become convinced of through other experiences, namely that the white
community did not care to have anything to do with them. It made for
r
very, very angry relations between the black and white populations of
p p
southeastern Michigan.”89
Arthur Johnson believes that the remedy imposed by Judge
DeMascio was grossly inadequate and that the judicial and political
systems allowed white society to escape its responsibility to deal
equitably with Detroit’s black schoolchildren. This reinforced
d
Johnson’s pessimistic view of the future of race relations:
p
88
Ritchie, interview. .
89
Bushnell,, interview. .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 45
g y
90
Johnson, interview.
91 .
Lange, interview.
g , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
46 Michigan Historical Review
g w
Chart 292
Total Attendance in Macomb County Public Schools s
120000
100000
80000 /
n
■ Bus
1111 NIMM
60000 -
■ No Bus
II II
40000
II I III
20000 j
1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
When informed in July 1974 that the Supreme Court had just
overturned Judge Roth’s busing order, one young mother interviewed at
t
the Macomb shopping mall said, “We’re moving out to St. Clair County
[north of Macomb County] soon because we thought [cross-district
t
busing] would go through. Maybe we wouldn’t have decided to move so
far if it weren’t for busing, but the house is almost finished.” 93
Another outcome of the cross-district busing controversy was that it
t
unified Warren in opposition to federally imposed racial integration.
During the 1970 HUD referendum the opposition to open housing had
d
been heaviest along Warren’s southern boundary with Detroit. This was
because Warren’s south side was widely expected to be a beachhead for
black migration out of Detroit into the suburbs. But in the 1972 advisory
y
referendum on busing the opposition was much more evenly distributed
among Warren’s voting precincts. The fact that the whole city of Warren
n
was under the proposed busing order created the conditions for a
citywide united front against busing. 94
y g g.
92
The chart data come from the Macomb County Intermediate School District Surveys
y
(1966-1979), located at the offices of the Macomb Intermediate School District.
93 .
Macomb Daily, 26 July 1974.
94
Riddle, “HUD and the Open Housing Controversy.”
, ."
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 47
g y
95
Of course, HUD’s compliance officers could reply that by threatening to suspend
d
the neighborhood development funds that Warren had applied for they were merely
y
upholding federal legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1968 Civil
Rights Act (also called the Fair Housing Act). Those laws stated that communities
receiving HUD grants had to enforce the civil rights laws. But the city administration of
Warren and in particular the Warren Police Department never seemed to be able to
o
locate, arrest, and prosecute even one of the individuals responsible for harassing black
people and burning crosses on the front lawns of the few African Americans who tried to
o
settle in Warren. Riddle, “HUD and the Open Housing Controversy,” 1-6.
96
Richard Sabaugh, interview (emphasis added); union official quoted by Dudley
Buffa, Union Power . . . 1935-72, 191. This picture of emergent citizen activism instead of
f
the more common stereotype of an inert electorate is significant. Certainly, many people
e
who lived in Warren went to work every day obhvious to the constitutional issues that
their neighbors were testing in the streets. As C. Wright Mills explains, “mass society”
was, paradoxically, a denial of public society. Cold War suburban culture expressed the
e
antipublic values of privacy and refuge in the family. Suburban space was a sanctuary
y
from urban conflict. Warren was just such a place—a bedroom community where people
fled the conflicts of the city. What makes the busing controversy interesting is that it ran
counter to this apolitical quiescence. Instead the cross-district busing movement
t
occasioned the largest and most sustained non-work-related protests in the city’s history.
.
See C. Wright Mills’s classic discussion of “the political ‘rear guard’” in White Collar (New
. g p g w
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
48 Michigan Historical Review
g
The busing controversy in Warren was about more than race, but the
e
racial aspect of the struggle helped to define Warren’s political culture.
The controversy provoked a bitter response from Warren’s white
working-class homeowners who felt that they had already been driven
from their old neighborhoods in Detroit The embedded memories of
f
interracial competition over housing in Detroit fueled the antibusing
g
movement in the suburbs.. These memories formed a kind of exodus s
* 97
narrative of white flight. In addition to blockbusting, this narrative
recalled interracial violence in the high schools as Detroit’s
s
neighborhoods underwent racial change. For older whites the exodus
s
signified a disorderly retreat spurred by fear of being “the last white on
n
the block.” It was a story of self-inflicted economic and emotional loss
accompanying the white abandonment of Detroit. This victimization/ exodus
myth became part of the suburban identity, even for some residents who had
m y,
never lived in Detroit. 988
The irony of the cross-district busing plan for metropolitan Detroit
is that it brought about the very evil it sought to avoid. The public policy
y
aspects of busing seem to have played a prominent part in Judge Roth’s
s
thinking. He apparently wanted to discourage white flight and reverse the
e
trend toward increasing racial segregation in southeastern Michigan. For
this reason, he took seriously the concerns of the Citizens’ Committee
for Better Education, composed of parents of white students in the
Detroit school district. They were the remnants of an older movement of
. y
York: Oxford University Press, 1951), 324-54; for the home-centered culture of the Cold
War period see Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
a
(New York: Basic Books, 1988).
97
Blockbusting occurred when realtors and banks reversed their practice of containing
the black population through racial steering, housing covenants, or redlining, and instead
sold openly to blacks. This compressed the cycle of home ownership, as whites
s
typically panicked and sold under value. The pent-up black demand for housing
assured realtors of sales and the banks of plenty of mortgage applicants. The
neighborhoods undergoing blockbusting could readily be identified by the “For Sale”
g g "
signs in many front yards.
98
This process often involved exchanging good, inexpensive, and paid-off housing
for more expensive, but relatively inferior, housing. After describing the attractive
piasterwork, the marble windowsills, and the leaded glass doors of the Detroit house that
he had just put on the market, one homeowner complained: “The suburban homes,
especially the newer ones, got plasterboard walls and plywood floors. But they’re not in
the city, so they’re worth more. So I’m getting ripped off. . . . Now I’m going to have to
get a big mortgage for a house in Warren, a house that is not as good as the one I just
sold.” Paul Wrobel, Our Way: Family, Parish, and Neighborhood in a Polish-American Community
y
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 134-35.
y , , .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The Cross-District Busing Controversy 49
g y
David Riddle, who lives in Detroit, teaches part time at Wayne State
e
University and is working on a book on Detroit labor attorney Ernest
Goodman. Thanks to Charlie Hyde for suggesting that this dissertation
chapter might make an article. Thanks to Steve Babson and George
Corsetti for criticism. And thanks to David Macleod and Mary Graham
y
for being firm but patient.
g p .
This content downloaded from 128.110.184.42 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 08:05:22 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms