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SCHOOL DESEGREGATION IN LANSING: 1960 TO 1994
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Edward Cromwell Mc Innis

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SCHOOL DESEGREGATION IN LANSING: 1960 TO 1994

BY

Edward Cromwell McInnis

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of History

1994

ABSTRACT
School Desegregation in Lansing: 1960-1994

BY

Edward Cromwell McInnis

In this essay, I examine the process of desegregation
in the Lansing School District from 1960 to 1994.
Desegregation expanded gradually, beginning first with a few
elementary schools, then incorporating secondary schools,
and concluded by covering all schools.

Though the community experienced periods of turmoil,
school desegregation in Lansing proceeded relatively
smoothly. The white population remained stable while most
residents eventually accepted desegregation. Favorable
social and economic conditions coupled with a concerted
effort by community leaders to sensitize Lansing residents
to school desegregation account for this result.

While marked by conflict, desegregation in Lansing
witnessed cooperation not only between blacks and whites but
also between supporters and opponents. Black and white
desegregation supporters united to promote the benefits of
an integrated society and the necessity of using public
education to achieve this. Supporters and opponents, despite
different ideologies, worked together to minimize tensions

which accompanied desegregation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
INTRODUCTION..... ........................... .. 1
Chapter
I. The Civil Rights Movement.......... ...... 4
II. Why Desegregation Supporters
Wanted Busing................... ....... 9
III. The Busing Opponents............. ........ 25
IV. Why Lansing Citizens Accepted
the Cluster Plan................ ..... .. 47

V.

VI.

VII.

Desegregation in Lansing: 1960-1972...... 55
Implementation of the Cluster Plan and

the Recall Election................... 62
The Post Recall Period: 1973-1978 ........ 68
CONCLUSION ................ ..... . ........ 85

BIBLIOGMPHY.OO0.00000000000COOOOOOOOOOOO 89

iii

INTRODUCTION

On June 29, 1972, the Lansing school board approved a
desegregation plan by a 5-3 margin for transporting white
elementary students to predominantly black schools. The
school board gave this plan no formal name. I, however, call
it the cluster plan because it organized eight elementary
schools into two geographic clusters.1

In November, 1972, the community reacted by recalling
five school board members that approved the plan. Five new
board members were elected in January 1973, and joined the
four remaining members in rescinding the desegregation plan.
Five months later, however, Judge Noel Fox of the 0.8.
District Court for the Western District of Michigan
reinstated the cluster plan.

After a year, tensions caused by the recall election
and the cluster plan subsided. A more comprehensive
desegregation plan ordered by Judge Fox for the 1976-1977
school year caused little violence, demonstrations, or any

other form of overt public protest. Further, a study by

Lansing school administrator William Webb in 1980 showed

 

1The Lansing School District, Schools in Review,
(Lansing, Michigan: A. publication of the Lansing School
District, 1978), p. l.

2
that the cluster plan had little effect on declining white
enrollment rates.2 While acknowledging that parochial
schools provided a refuge for those trying to escape busing,
he also showed that over time few took advantage of this
option. In 1967 4015 students attended parochial schools. By
1979 only 2352 were enrolled in such schools.3

In this essay I shall expand upon Webb's study by
examining factors within Lansing that prevented large public
demonstrations, violence, and white flight when
desegregation was implemented, using newspaper accounts,
school board minutes, court records, school documents,
census data, and personal interviews. I define
"desegregation“ as the physical process of bringing people
of different racial, ethnic, or social/economic groups
together. ”Integration" results when people of different
ethnic groups choose to interact peacefully together.

While a combination of factors accounts for the
relative ease with which the Lansing school board
implemented desegregation, actions by community leaders
involved with the schools were most important. First, they
initiated several small desegregation plans during the

19608. These plans prepared the community for more

 

2William L. Webb, "A Study of the Desegregation of the
Lansing, Michigan Elementary Schools and the Effects of That
Desegregation On White and Non-White Enrollment.“ (Ph.D.
diss., Michigan State University, 1980), p. 102.

3Ibid., p. 105.

3
comprehensive desegregation plans during the mid—19708.
Approving these desegregation plans required courage because
the majority of Lansing's citizens opposed them. Once
approved, these plans created an environment where teachers,
parents, and students could construct interracial
friendships. Another important group were leaders of
neighborhood associations who organized grass roots efforts
directed at maintaining minority neighborhoods involved with
busing. Finally, even board members who opposed
desegregation contributed to its success by cooperating with
school administrators and the courts in implementing the
plan.

I shall also examine the reasons why people supported
or opposed desegregation. Though concerned about equal
education for minorities, desegregation supporters in
Lansing wanted the cluster plan primarily to improve race
relations and promote integration in housing. While
prejudice obviously motivated desegregation opponents, other
forces such as a conservative ideology and attachment to
their communities also influenced them. This may explain why

they eventually accepted it.

Chapter 1

The Civil Rights Movement

Before analyzing school desegregation in Lansing, I
will briefly summarize the national civil rights movement
which created a mood conducive to producing support for
integrated communities at the local level. Prior to the mid-
19508, most public schools in the 0.8. were segregated.
While many southern school districts maintained dual
systems, ge factg segregation existed in the North. This
condition began changing following Brown v. goard of
Education (1954). In Brown v. Board of Education the United
States Supreme Court declared that schools segregated by
race were inherently unequal and denied blacks equal
protection under the law.‘.

Civil rights activist grew more assertive after the
Brown decision. The Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott led by
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1956 successfully eliminated

5

discrimination on that city's buses“ On February 1, 1960,

 

l'Gary Orfield, Must We Bus?: Segregated Schools and
National Policy, (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute,
1978), p. 13.

5Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality: 1954—
1980 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981), pp. 53—58.

4

5
several blacks began sit—ins at restaurants serving whites
only in Greensboro, North Carolina.6 These sit-ins spread
throughout the South leading to the famous “freedom rides,"
which challenged discrimination on interstate passenger
busses in 1961.7 Under the leadership of King, blacks and
their white supporters continued protesting racial
discrimination in the South during the early 19608,
culminating with the march on Washington on August 28, 1963.
Their efforts won several political victories. In 1964
President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act which
prohibited discrimination in public places and banned
discrimination by employers and unions.8 In 1965 he signed a
new Voting Rights Actq9.A spirit of racial cooperation
dominated the civil rights movement during the early 19603.
This cooperative mood also prevailed in Lansing.

Although these laws brought political equality to
blacks, social and economic inequality still existed. The
civil rights movement took a different course during the mid
19609, focusing on ways to increase social and economic
equality. The policy of busing reflected this trend because
despite the Brown decision, segregation still existed in

many schools. Residential segregation, not the maintenance

 

6Ibid., pp. 72-79.

 

 

 

 

6
of a dual school system, caused school segregation in both
the North and South. Many districts operated neighborhood
school systems, where students attended the school nearest
their home. Residential segregation combined with a
neighborhood school policy insured that segregation still
existed after Brown. This resulted in ge facto segregation.
To remedy de factg segregation civil rights supporters
advocated busing, a type of desegregation which assigned
students to schools outside their neighborhood. The primary
political force behind the implementation of desegregation
were the federal courts.

Several important Supreme Court rulings broadened the
power of lower federal courts to use busing. In green 2. New
Lgnt_§ggn§y (1968), the Supreme Court ruled that school
districts could not use freedom of choice plans for
desegregation. Often, in choice plans, only a few blacks
would attend white-schools-while whites never attended black
schools.‘10 The Supreme Court ruled in Sggnn v. Charlgtte-
nggklenburg Bgard of Eggcgtign (1971) that school boards

still had to correct segregation even if it resulted from

 

past school board policies but not present ones. While Swann
y, Charlotte acknowledged that forces other than
discrimination could cause segregation, placed the burden of

proof on the school board. This case also gave lower federal

 

'mOwen Fiss, M. ”School Desegregation: The Uncertain Path
of the Law, " fiusing g,§.A. (Teachers College, Columbia
University, New York, 1979) Nicolaus Mills, editor, p. 23.

7

courts more power to order desegregation for recalcitrant
school districts.11

As lower federal courts began ordering desegregation of
public school's, resistance grew with the unfortunate result
of large demonstrations and violence in some communities. In
Michigan, unrest was especially pronounced. When Judge Damon
J. Keith ordered desegregation in Pontiac (1971), the anti-
busing National Action Group (NAG) led several large
demonstrations, one drawing 6,000 people while another
closed down a General Motors manufacturing plant for a

‘n The night before school began, members of the Ku Klux

day.
Klan destroyed 10 busses. George Wallace, Alabama governor
and segregationist, won the Michigan Democratic Presidential
primary in May, 1972, on an anti-busing platform.

Many scholars, after studying desegregation in cities
such as Pontiac, concluded that it damaged the black civil
rights movement. The Lansing desegregation case suggest,
however, that despite the turmoil, communities found ways to
adapt to it. While desegregation facilitated the formation
of anti-busing groups, it also led to the formation of pro—

busing forces as well. Though busing opponents and

proponents bitterly fought each other, they sometimes

 

”Ibid., pp. 24—25.

 

'nEarnest Leroy Russell. "A study of Change and Conflict
in Court ordered Busing as a Means of School Desegregation In
an Urban School District" (Ph.D diss., Michigan State
University, 1978), pp. 13, 127—128.

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cooperated during the desegregation process. This
cooperation facilitated the development of many inter—racial
friendships which, over the long run, contributed to

improving race relations in the United States.

 

Chapter 2

Why Desegregation Supporters Wanted Busing

Most scholars of desegregation have examined its
success at achieving equal education for minorities.
Analyzing desegregation from this perspective has yielded a
wealth of information on factors that make busing
successful, the extent to which it causes white flight, and
what policies might make desegregation more effective.

Few scholars, however, have analyzed why blacks and
whites favored desegregation. The Lansing desegregation case
helps answer this questions because, white board members and
administrators implemented several desegregation plans
voluntarily. It is clear, based on statements from two
school board appointed citizens' committees, board members,
pro-desegregation school administrators, and other
desegregation advocates, that they believed desegregation
would improve race relations. Further, recalled school board
members Hortense G. Canady, Kathryn A. Boucher, and Richard
L. Beers believed desegregation could help integrate
Lansing's neighborhoods while improving minority education.

Desegregation proponents supported the idea of

neighborhood schools. Howard Jones, leader of the Southeast

 

cr..

rJ

 

10
Neighborhood Association and staunch supporter of the
cluster plan, said:
The school acts as an anchor... making it easier to
have a cohesive community.... We meet there and sponsor
afteréschool activities such as taco night and other
programs for kids free of charge. .. We worked with the

kids planting flowers and cleaning up the area around
the school this spring and last fall.

Jones suggest these little activities served the larger
purpose of building a common neighborhood identity.
Similarly, Bruce Angell II, a busing opponent, saw the
school as an anchor. As president of the Gunnisonville PTA,
he believed schools held communities together by promoting
traditional family values.

Desegregation supporters believed that neighborhood
schools, racially imbalanced before the 19608, discouraged
housing integration. Desegregation, however, could reform
the neighborhood school system by ending racial imbalance.
This, they believed, would increase the rate of housing
integration in Lansing. Lansing's neighborhood schools could
be restored once integrate housing had been achieved.

The belief that desegregation should be used to create
integrated neighborhoods along with equal education for
blacks began during the early 19608. Prior to this time, the
Lansing School District did little to correct racial

discrimination even though the NAACP often protested against

 

‘BHoward Jones. Interviewed by Author, Lansing, Michigan.
11 May 1993.

11
the paucity minority teachers, racially motivated attendance
boundary changes, and medical transfers. It is not
surprising that discrimination continued despite NAACP
protest when one considers what several avid desegregation
supporters said. John Marrs, who taught at Sexton High
School during the early 19508, said few people ever thought
much of racial discrimination or the lack of opportunities
for blacks. William Webb said that school administrators did
not consider when making attendance boundaries for
schools.“

During the early 19608, school board members began to
favor eliminating racial segregation in the schools. In
April, 1963, the education committee of the Lansing branch
of the NAACP presented to the school board information on
the effects of segregation in Lansing schools. Among other
things the committee.alerted the board to inequalities in
facilities, playground equipment, and standards of
achievement in predominantly black schools. To eliminate
these inequalities in facilities and achievement levels the
committee recommended that the board adopt a statement

”favoring the elimination of segregation wherever it may

 

1’"John Marrs, Interviewed by Author, 2 June, 1993, and
William Webb, Interviewed by Author on 15 July 1993.

12

«15

exist. The committee also called on the board to place at

least one black teacher in every school in the system.‘16
Unlike earlier times, the school board responded to the
NAACP's reports by implementing several small desegregation
plans and debating the creation of more comprehensive ones.
Desegregation supporters, during its incipient stages,
wanted desegregation because they believed it would improve
minority achievement. This reason remained important to
desegregation supporters in Lansing throughout the 19608 and
early 19708. It made sense in light of the fact that gggwn
v, fiogrd 9f Education declared segregated schools unequal.
Using desegregation only in this way created political
problems, however. It could be argued that one need simply
to improve minority schools to improve student achievement.
The evidence suggested that by 1972, if not before, anti—
busers offered this alternative to counter the need for
busing. Joan Hess, in a letter to the Lansing State Journal,
said that the gap between predominantly minority elementary

17

schools and white elementary schools was narrowing. Bruce

Angell II said in my interview of him that the post-recall

 

‘fifiortense~Canady. "Cooperative Community Efforts Leading
to Equal Educational Opportunity in the Lansing School
District, With Special Emphasis on the Role of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People." No date,

p. 6.
16Canady, report, p. 6.

‘nJoan Hess “We Need the Facts," Lansing State Journal.
9 April 1972.

13
board, while against busing, approved aid for predominantly
minority schools.18

In court-ordered desegregation, the Brown precedent
made all research showing the failure of desegregation to
improve education moot. The Lansing Board of Education found
this out in 1975 when the court ruled against them despite
presenting an array of evidence showing that many people in
Lansing opposed busing and that desegregation failed to
improve academic performance. During the mid 19608, however,
desegregation supporters on the Lansing school board did not
have the support of the courts. Thus for the larger white
community to accept desegregation, the board needed to give
reasons other than improving minority education. This is
what happened as.the 19608 progressed.

During the.mid—l9608, supporters of desegregation
stressed the need to encourage inter—racial contact more
than equal educational opportunity. In June, 1966, the
Citizens Advisory Committee addressing de facto segregation
in Lansing schools, concluded that it harmed all students.'19
Integrated schools would benefit all children, not simply
disadvantaged minorities. I

If the purpose of schools is to prepare children for

 

18Bruce Angell II, Interview by Author, 4 May 1993.

19Report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Educational
Opportunity. Lansing, Michigan. Submitted to the Lansing
School Board on 23 June 1966, p. 2.

This report can be found at the information services
department in the Lansing schools administration building.

'1

r“

14

life in our ever shrinking world community, as we

believe, then the integration of all cultural and

social-economic groups within the school is vital.
The Citizens’ Committee' 8 statement suggest some busing
supporters believed that students unable to deal with people
of different racial groups or social classes would have
difficulty surviving in American society. Their statement
also implies that American society would suffer if schools
failed to prepare students to live in a socially diverse
society.

The committee believed that all white neighborhood
schools discouraged many whites from living in integrated
neighborhoods.

Until very recently, individuals could select a home in

a certain areas of the city where their children would

not be in a racially mixed school. A great many homes

have been sold or rented where a primary concern was
that the occupant's children would attend all white
schools.21 »
Despite acknowledging the fact that the neighborhood school
system obstructed school integration, the school board
approved only a secondary school desegregation plan. I
believe their reason for avoiding a more comprehensive plan
was because they hoped natural integration in housing would

obviate the need for more comprehensive desegregation. Their

hesitancy was well justified as 2,000 angry parents signed a

 

 

L1

.11

 

 

 

15
petition opposing this very limited action. Further, the
Ingham County Circuit Court delayed implementation of this
small plan for a year. I will discuss this event greater
detail later in my essay. Thus while desegregation advocates
believed desegregation could improve race relations during
the late 19608, they left the neighborhood school system
largely intact.

During the early 19708, however, grassroots activism
caused the school board to make fundamental changes to its
methods of desegregation. Up to this time desegregation
efforts encompassed the secondary schools and a small number
of elementary schools. A number of students from Lansing's
predominantly black West Side were bussed to predominantly
white elementary schools nearby. This small scale busing,
which I will discuss in greater detail later, had two
purposes. First it was designed tO'reduce overcrowding in
Lansing's West Side schools. Secondly it offered a chance to
integrate some of Lansing's elementary schools. While white
parents did not resist one—way busing, a group of West Side
residents, many who were black, did. They angrily confronted
three board members at a special meeting in March, 1970, who
favored closing West Side schools and busing their children
to primarily white schools in other neighborhoods. The West

Side residents believed that neighborhood schools would help

16
revive their community.22

This conflict provided the impetus for a new
desegregation policy by the school board. Up to this point
the board used only one-way busing, probably because the
larger Lansing community accepted it. Growing protest by
West Side residents persuaded them to consider busing white
students into predominantly minority neighborhoods.

Two-way desegregation, or the transportation of white
students to primarily minority schools while concurrently
transporting minorities to white schools, developed from
this conflict. More so than earlier busing plans, busing
supporters designed two-way desegregation to prevent white
flight from communities bordering the West Side to other
neighborhoods in the city. Many whites living adjacent to
black neighborhoods often moved when blacks began moving
into their community. Many left because their children could
attend primarily white elementary schools. Two-way
desegregation would reduce the incentive to move out of
“changing“ neighborhoods because their children still would
attend school with blacks regardless of where they lived.

At the turn of the decade, busing supporters also
wanted to expand desegregation to integrate children of
different social classes. The 1972 Citizens' Committee

majority report said:

 

‘aJudith Brown, "Objections to Phase out Mount on West
Side” Lansing State Journal. 13 March 1970.

 

17

Continued use of the neighborhood elementary school as

we know it would widen the gap between the economically

privileged and the deprived, even if raciaé}y

desegregated neighborhoods became real1ty.
Expanding desegregation to include economic class suggest
that committee members wanted to unite blacks and working—
class whites. It also suggest that only working class
neighborhoods were becoming integrated while middle and
upper middle class still remained white. Thus desegregation
would end both racial and social class isolation. Working
class students would gain-access to middle class culture,
allowing them to integrate more easily in white collar
working environments. This idea was very radical when
considering the voices behind it. Whites composed 54% of the
committee members . 2"

It is easy to understand why blacks supported
desegregation,.since they believed it would improve the
quality of their schools. This does not explain why whites
supported desegregation when they had no monetary or social
gain by doing 80. Further, many black supporters of
desegregation also looked beyond material benefits they

might gain from desegregation.

More research is needed to determine the

 

2"’Report of the Citizen's advisory Committee on
Educational Opportunity. 20 April 1972, p. 2.

This report can be found in the information services
department of the Lansing school administration building.

“”Official Report of the Citizens Advisory Committee on
Educational Opportunity," The State Journal. 23 April 1972.

18

characteristics of desegregation supporters. My research,
however, provides a partial description. The board members
who approved the cluster plan and their supporters were
primarily well educated individuals. Kathryn Boucher and
Howard Jones were teachers, Richard Beers worked for the
state government as a political scientist, Clarence Rose was
an architect and Tom Walsh was a lawyer. Women occupied
dominant roles among the desegregation supporters. Three of
the five recalled were women and women composed
approximately half of those on the 1972 Citizen's
Committee.25 Women supporters also included teachers such as
Carol Murray and neighborhood organizers such as Anne Kron.
Other supporters included clergy, labor leaders and
journalists. Many young people who wanted to live in
integrated communities supported desegregation. Carol
Murray, 8 teacher in the Lansing School District described
them as "flower children“ who moved to Lansing's West
Side.26

Some supported desegregation because they wanted a new
type of community where people of all races and social
classes lived together in harmony. Anne Kron, founder of the
West Side Neighborhood Association wanted an integrated

neighborhood because she wanted to raise her children to be

 

‘ECitizens' Committee Report, 1972, p. 1.

26’Carol Murray, Interviewed by Author, 25 March 1993.

19

exposed to ethnic and social class diversity. Dick Baker, a
white West Side resident, described his participation in its
renovation through model cities program as "magical times."
Desegregation supporters possessed a missionary element by
attempting to build a new community in the same spirit that
the Puritans wanted to build a city on a hill. Baker, while
not describing himself as a church attender, saw himself and
others involved with reviving the West Side as religious and
moral .27

Busing supporters advocated desegregation for reasons
beyond the desire for integrated communities, however.
Several board members and community leaders believed racial
ldivision in Lansing and indeed the country would have
deleterious effects for the future of the United States. A
number of events, along with the racial prejudice which had
existed in Lansing for many years showed, that racial
conflict was growing violent.

Lansing experienced two riots, one in 1964, and a
second and worse riot in 1966. During the evening of August
8th, 1966 a fight between black and white youths in downtown
Lansing escalated into a riot which required 250 police

1.28

officers to bring under contro The riots continued on

August 9th and 10th, resulting in a number of injuries but

 

27Dim Baker, Interviewed by Author, 2 March 1993.

28Loyd Moses, "Police Curb Rioting Youth,“ The State
Journal, 8 August 1966.

 

 

 

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20
no deaths. The intervention of Richard Letts and black
clergy helped end the riot by opening the recreational
facilities of Lansing public schools.‘29

Racial tensions in the high schools during the 1970—
1971 and 1971-1972 school year further demonstrated growing
tensions in Lansing. Sexton, Everett, and Harry Hill High
Schools all experienced fights between black and white
studentsfso Dick Beers believed that the school board must
act to reduce increasing racial tensions in the community.

We had gone through two ”hot“ summers in this town. We

had a sense that unless there was some response grom

the school board...th1s town was liable to blow.
Beers suggest that racial divisions had to be corrected not
only to avoid civil disturbances in the near future but also
over the long term. While only Beers directly referred to
past racial disturbances it is easy to see that these events
might have influenced other busing supporters.

Clarence Rosa's comments during the 1975 court case
also expressed concern for what might happen were racial
divisions not addressed:

I think it is important that these young people do

develop that kind of rapport where they can live with

. and work with somebody of a different than they are,

and the best way the for them to- or one way- not
necessarily the best, but a way that we have a chance

 

29Loyd Moses. “Pact Eases Tension on West Side, " The State
Journal, 10 August 1966.

:wRichard Beers. Interview by Author, 20 May 1993.

”Beers .

 

21

of achieving now is for them to associate in school,
and therefore I felt it important that we desegregate
our schools and arrive at the kind of brotherhood, I
guess would call it, for our children and our
grandchildren. ,

The reference to “our children and grandchildren“ implied
that not only would life become better with improved race
relations but that it might also become worse without it.
Following generations, not the present one would suffer most
from poor race relations. ‘

John Lewis, a black a member of the Main Street PTA and
member of the West Side Neighborhood Association, said:

What I feel was the key complaint, was the fact that
our school over‘there, even in light of the excellent
staff they had there at Main Street School,
nevertheless... was approximately eighty percent black
and this was disturbing.... My feelings were then and
are now,1that an individual, a youngster, cannot get
quality education in a segregated environment. That is
because when he goes out into the world after his
school days, he doesn't go out into an all black or an
all white world but a mixture of all kinds Of races,
creeds, colors and so forth.... If he isn't exposed to
this sort of thing while he is experiencing learning
in School his ability to communicate with those other
people out there in the world, he is at a loss.

Thus some blacks wanted desegregation because it would
create an environment where black and white children would

learn to become comfortable with each other. The last part

of Lewis's statement suggest that he believed that students

 

. I“21*Jational Association for the Advancement of Colored
People- Lansing Branch v. Lansing Board of Education., pp.
707-708.

 

r.

22
would be disadvantaged if schools failed at this.
Extrapolating from.what might happen if students failed to
learn to cooperate with others of different racial
backgrounds, suggest that Lewis believed all society would
suffer.

Lewis's statement also suggest that “equality of
education“ meant something different to him than it to NAACP
representatives arguing for improving academic achievement
during the early 19608. Lewis's comments suggest that
equality of education for blacks meant learning how to
communicate with whites who filled most leadership positions
in businesses and government.

Carl Candoli, superintendent and staunch busing
supporter said most directly that a racially divided society
endangered not only Lansing but the whole country:

I suspect all of us feel most comfortable in

homogeneous groupings; people who are like us, think

like us, respond like us, make us much more comfortable
because there is no frustration. But our country is not
that homogeneous and so we have to deal with the power
of this diversity if our country is to survive.
Candoli felt it incumbent upon public schools to heal racial
divisions in Lansing and the United States. Desegregation
would create new social identities, break up old ones, and
create a culture which strengthened national unity.
In sum, Lansing busing supporters saw desegregation not

only as a way to improve schools for minorities but also for

 

:“Minutes of the Board of Education, 16 April 1972, p. 13.

23
integrating all the city's neighborhoods. They proposed the
idea that education transcended the teaching of traditional
academics to include developing an understanding for
different racial groups.

‘ By promoting desegregation as a way to improve race
relations rather than improving minority education, I
believe busing supporters increased awareness of racial
problems.among desegregation opponents. During and after the
recall vote controversy, some busing opponents acknowledged
that the community needed to address racial division by
suggesting other possible solutions. Both Ray Hannula and
Joan Hess suggested magnet schools which would offer special
programs to draw students from across the school district as
an alternative to busing. This method would cause less
turmoil because it was voluntary. Max Shunk, leader of
Citizen's for Neighborhood Schools (CNS) said his group
tried initiating a program for achieving open housing though
it did not succeed.35

Further, by emphasizing improve race relations rather
than academic performance, desegregation supporters,
especially board members and school administrators,
increased the chances that whites would see it as successful
in creating inter-racial friendships. The school could more

easily show examples of interracial friendships than of

 

:fiMax Shunk, Interviewed.by Author, 8 March 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

 

 

 

(‘1

24
academic improvement among minorities. Two studies conducted
several years after the cluster plan appeared, one by
Hubbell and Associates measuring attitudes toward
desegregation, the other measuring changes in academic
performance of studentsf36 Dr. Richard Benjamin conducted
the study measuring changes in academic performance for the
school district. This study showed no change in academic

performance by minoritiesfi37

The study measuring changes in
attitudes toward the cluster plan, however, showed that a
large number of students had made inter—racial friendships.

I will expand on this study later in this essay.

 

:“Schoolgin Review, p. 2.

:yNAACP v. Lansinq School Board. p. 803.

Chapter 3

The Busing Opponents

The key to understanding why Lansing residents accepted
the cluster plan lies in the busing opponents views. Anti-v
buser arguments offer a sampling of racial attitudes in the
community. Racial attitudes may have improved enough during
the 19608 and 19708 to where-many accepted the cluster plan.
While many reasons may account for this, the anti-busers'
statements suggest that pro-busers' arguments had increased
their awareness of greater racial problems that they wanted
to solve such as racial division and open housing.

My information about busing opponents comes from
interviews with school board members who participated in the
recall election and/or voted to rescind the cluster plan,'
court documents and letters to the editor. I divided anti—
busers into two groups; school board members and recall
organizers who led anti-busing efforts, and regular citizens
who voiced their disapproval of the cluster plan. I created
two groups because the former represented the collective
voices of a large group rather than their own interest. The
latter, however, spoke for themselves. Because of this their

reasons for opposing busing sometimes differed.

25

‘4

26

Before analyzing‘the views of desegregation opponents,
a short history of race relations in Lansing prior to
desegregation is helpful. The Agtobiographv ofjgglcolm_§
offers some of the best information on black life in Lansing
during the first half of the 20th century. Malcolm X's
father, Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and black
nationalist leader in the Lansing area who many believe was
murdered in the early 19308. Malcolm x reported that Lansing
blacks experienced few of the opportunities created by the
auto industry. Employment was limited to menial and
dangerous task with the best jobs being janitorial work or
waiting tables during the 19303. Some blacks worked for the
WPA while others had no job at all. Not only were employment
opportunities for blacks limited but they often were
prevented from walking the streets in East Lansing after
dark . 3°

Racial prejudice remained strong during the late 19508
to the mid 19603. In Lansing, restrictive covenants
reinforced housing segregationf39 Not until 1967 did the
City of Lansing invalidate housing covenants which prevented

even middle and upper middle class blacks from moving into

 

ggJustin L. Kestenbaum. Out of the Wilderness: An

illustrated Hi story of Greater Lansing. (Woodhills, California:
Windsor Publication, 1981), p. 111.

”mm. , p. 111.

 

o-Jq

27

most white neighborhoods."’O Lansing School Attorney Stuart
Dunnings‘s attempt to buy property in a white neighborhood
illustrates this prejudice. He wanted this property, listed
for $10,000, to build a house. The owner refused to sell it
to him, however. Dunnings then sought to buy another lot in
different white neighborhood for the same price. He enlisted
the help of a white friend to buy the land for him. As the
realtor drove Dunnings's friend to the property, they passed
through a black neighborhood. This prompted Dunnings's
friend to say to the realtor that he feared that blacks
would soon surround the property due to its proximity to
this neighborhood. The realtor sold it to him for.$4500
cash, winning Dunnings a real bargain. This was probably one
of the few times racism ever benefited a black person."1

The school board's solution to overcrowding in
predominantly minority schools on Lansing's West side also
suggests racial prejudice. As more blacks settled in Lansing
during the late 19503 and early 19603, elementary schools
their children attended- Kalamazoo, Michigan Avenue,
Lincoln, and Main- became overcrowded. The school board,
however, did not relieve this overcrowding by redrawing

school boundaries so black students would attend nearby

 

“Stuart Dunnings, Interview by author, Lansing, Michigan,
18 March, 1993;

“Ibid .

 

28

white elementary schools.“

They used mobile classrooms
insteadt“ The board complied when white parents, with
children attending racially mixed elementary schools, wanted
their neighborhoods placed in the attendance zones of
adjacent white elementary schools.

Parents from neighborhoods in transition also obtained
medical transfers allowing them to enroll their children in
schools outside their attendance zone. If students could
find a doctor to say she/he suffered from medical or
psychological stress from attending a certain school, they
could attend another school outside their district. This
practice began during the late 19503 and continued into the
late 19603. Many white students enrolled at Main Street
Elementary School transferred to Verlinden Elementary School
using medical transfers. According to Stuart Dunnings,
students could obtain medical transfers with only a cursory
examination. Blacks at Main Street Elementary School also
could receive medical transfers to attend predominantly
white elementary schools but many chose not tofi“

It is in this milieu of a growing black population
coupled with only marginal efforts to deal with

discrimination that a debate, spurred by a secondary school

desegregation plan, began in the community at large. This

 

‘QNAACP v. Lansinq Board of Education, p. 3.
“Ibide I pp. 3-40

“Dunnings .

29
debate, during the mid—19603 provides the best sampling of
arguments put forth by busing opponents. These early voices
when compared to 1994 seem blatantly racist. Five of 39
individuals speaking on busing at a school bdard meeting on
August 4, 1966, denied that segregation existed. Roger Van
Kuiken said:
In my Opinion we do not have segregation. We have
imbalance all over the country, and what is wrong
with imbalance? How are our children going to be able
to participate in sports if they are bussed? We had
racial imbalance in the past, it is mostly by choice.
Mr. Letts said, at the meeting Monday night, that the
Negro has moved to the North and West. I think he moved
there because he wants to be with the people he has
something in common with. How can children have
childhood memories if they live in one area and go to
school in another?
Van Kuiken also believed that children needed to attend a
neighborhood school for a community to remain strong.-
Communities gave people such as Van Kuiken a sense of
identity. While busing opponents used this argument less
frequently during secondary school desegregation, attachment
to one's neighborhood provided a constant obstacle to pro-
desegregation forces.
Van Kuiken's statement also suggested people knew that

neighborhood communities did not facilitate integration of

different racial groups because they attracted individuals

 

'“Minutes of the Lansing School District, 4 August 1966,
p. 24.

All Minutes of school board meetings are located in the
information services department at the Lansing schools
administration building.

 

 

.
‘ v
1
t
s
d .
.'~
A
'.
A
. .
\
‘
,
s
1
.
V.
. . L
3 l
i l.-

30
similar to the existing¢neighborhood residents. Even worse,
he readily accepted this fact. Van Kuiken's belief that
segregation resulted completely from the conscious effort of
blacks to avoid whines and not from housing discrimination
in Lansing struck me most. Racial prejudice, because it was
so ingrained in people, prevented them from recognizing its
most blatant forms. - ‘

Racial prejudice even blinded some future busing
supporters during the years preceding desegregation,
approving policies they later questioned such as medical
transfers and boundary changes. Clarence Rosa, commenting on
school board desegregation policy during the late 19503 and
19603 said:

I suspect that we may have taken action that others

could interpret as being discriminatory, but for the

board to consciously take an action, whose sole purpose
was discrimination, I really don't think we ever did.

While desegregation opponents during the mid to late
19603 harshly condemned busing, part of their comments show
a growing awareness of the underlining problems
desegregation attempted to solve. Earl Burgering at the
August 4th board meeting said

If the city human relations committee wants to

something, they are spending their time at the wrong

place. They should be going to the real estate board
and city council instead of the school board. They

 

“NAACB v. Lansing School Board of Education, p. 304.

31

should go there and fight for open housing.”'

Though attacking the board, Burgering's comment suggest a
nascent awareness of problem which desegregation was
attempting to solve, namely that of open housing. More
research is needed on the degree to which desegregation
increased the awareness for open housing legislation. It is
possible, however, that because desegregation supporters
cited the lack of open housing as a need for busing, the
Lansing City Government passed open housing legislation
approximately one year after the August 4, 1966, school
board meeting that debated desegregation.

Opponents of the 1972 cluster plan used different
arguments than those secondary school busing opponents used
in 1966. After examining nearly fifty letters to the editor,
only one said segregation occurred by choice. Fewer people
said that housing segregation resulted from the voluntary
actions of blacks. Instead, they claimed that busing denied
them freedom to control where their children attended
school.“8 I begin my discussion with the leaders of the 1972
anti-busing movement and then-analyze individual community

members.

 

‘wMinutes‘of the Lansing School Board Meeting, 4 August
1966.

‘wThe following sample were letters to the editor taken
from the Lansing State Journal from 1 March 1972 to 10 April
1972. Also included is a sample from the local history section
of the Lansing Public Library.

32

In 1972, many Lansing busing opponents believed racial
integration was good. They acknowledged that discrimination
in housing needed to be'corrected and racial divisions"
healed. While opposed to the cluster plan, Joan Hess, a
busing opponent elected to the board in 1973, supported
early desegregation plans saying:

I think-inzsome cases the onelway busing has been

good. It has allowed some of the predominately white

areas to become_acquainted with black families, and it

allowed some black families to become acquainted with

white areas . ‘9 '
Despite saying that desegregation benefit society, Hess
opposed sending whites to predominantly black elementary
schools, citing her belief in neighborhood schools and the
expense of busing. This suggest some prejudice on her part.
Still if Hess was an ardent racist, it is unlikely she would
have chosen to live around blacks. Further, she became good
friend of Gilda Richardson, a black school board member who
favored busing. Though on opposite sides during the court
case, Hess and Richardson drove together to the trial.’50

Most striking about Hess's comment is her ambivalence.
She supported desegregation, even saying busing is good yet
still opposed the cluster plan. She favored neighborhood

schools yet, as a witness, said two-way busing was not bad.

I believe Hess at this moment personified the dilemma that

 

'“NAACP v. Lansin Board of Education, p. 429.

soGilda Richardson. Interviewed by Author, Lansing,
Michigan. 13 April, 1993.

Q \ .

r0

’4

33
desegregation created in some Lansing citizens. People
believed that society needed racial harmony yet feared that
the process of achieving this goal would threaten their
traditional neighborhoods that provided them with social
stability.

One cannot determine how much desegregation supporters
influenced busing opponents with_their arguments for the
cluster plan. It is possible, however, that people like Hess
became more aware of racial problems from earlier
desegregation debates and thus chose to move to
neighborhoods with minorities. It may have also encouraged
some whites not to move out of changing neighborhoods.

.Several reasons other than prejudice can explain Hess's
opposition to the cluster plan. She and several other recall
election leaders and board members opposed desegregation
because they believed integration was occurring naturally in
Lansing's neighborhoods. Hess had black neighbors whose kids
learned to swim in her pool. She further said:

I believed in neighborhood schools and I felt that

neighborhoods were beginning to desegregate, because I

could look around mine and the rest of the city and see
progress.

Some evidence supports Hess's claims that Lansing was
integrating naturally. Beginning in the mid 19603 and early

19703, blacks slowly began moving into predominantly white

I
t

 

51N P v. ansin Board of Education, pp. 423-424.

.I.
.i.
,

34
neighborhoods for the first time. This resulted partly from
the construction of Interstate Highway 496, Oldsmobile's
expansion, expansion of Oakland Avenue and the Capital city
expansion resulted in the destruCtion of many houses in the
black community from=1961 to 1970. This led some blacks to
move to the fringe of the black community and ultimately
into predominantly white areas in Lansing. Lansing's fair
housing ordinance of 1967 also contributed to a gradual
influx of blacks into traditionally white neighborhoods.
Census data from the 19708 confirmed this showing that

Lansing's Southeast side blacks composed over 10% of the
population. Blacks began penetrating other traditionally
white areas as well. The Northwest part of Lansing was
completely white when Gilda Richardson and her family moved
there in 1970. Most of her neighbors accepted blacks moving
to their neighborhood. Only one individual resisted. He
stopped when nobody followed his lead and decided to become
friends with the Richardsons. Still many areas on Lansing's
South Side, North Side and far Southeast Side remained
segregated?"2

Anti-busing leaders also believed that the social
turmoil desegregation might create outweighed the benefits.

Michael Walsh, a board member who voted against the plan,

 

52United States Department of Commerce/Bureau of the
Census, 1970 Censss of Population and Housing. (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1970), pp. P—4, P-5, P-6,
P-7e

~Richardson.

v‘
I

k—

35
lived in one of Lansing's integrated neighborhoods.$3 Walsh
believed two-way busing could not succeed because too many

whites feared blacks . 5"

Similarly Max Shunk believed people
of different races could not be forced together and that
people preferred separate neighborhood schools..Shunk also
believed that desegregation did not interest many blacks,
contending that 50% agreed with CNS. When working at
Oldsmobile he observed blacks, Chicanos, and whites happily
congregated in their separate groups during lunches and

breaks.55

Ray Hannula, another school board member who voted
against the cluster plan, also lived in a neighborhood with
black people as did Max Shunk.

Anti-busing leaders may also have opposed the cluster
plan because the majority in the community opposed it. Ray
Hannula offered this as the chief reason he opposed busing
saying: I

We had a pretty good indicntion from the public

hearings, PTA, and other polls how the majority we are

supposed to represent-felt about this issue. It was
opposed by the.majority of the community.6
If accurate, the school board's polls suggest that public

pressure may have discouraged a few board members from

 

S3NAACP v. Lansing Bosrd of Education, p. 595.
S"SchoolzBoard Minutes, 16 April 1972, p. 10.
SSShunk.

5’I‘Unadapted Minutes of the Board of Education Lansing
School District. Lansing, Michigan. 6 July, 1972, pp. 6-12.

36
approving a busing plan, especially if most of their
supporters opposed busing.,Further, one might successfully
achieve political gains by favoring the majority who opposed
busing. School board member Clara Harrington originally
favored some typeLof-two-way desegregation plan. Because he
changed his position to oppose the cluster plan during the
early stage of the recall drive, however, Citizens for
Neighborhood Schools ended their recall campaign against
him.

Some cluster plan opponents may have opposed busing
more aggressively because they believed that the federal
government would limit it during the early 19708. Hannula in
the second part of his earlier statement said

This board was told that we had to desegregate because

it was the law of the land; that the courts have found

it unconstitutional to permit public schools to exist
which were all black or white even though this was the
case the result of neighborhood housing patterns and
not legislation; that de-facto desegregation and de-
jure segregation were one and the same. For all
intensive purposes, I don't believe that, and I think

the Supreme court will so indicate in the not-too- .

distant future. The court has already warned some of

the of the loger courts not to interpret their ruling
so liberally.
President Richard M. Nixon also gave anti-busers hope that
the federal government would support them. On March 16,
1972, he declared his opposition to busing with a major

announcement over television and radio.

One cannot assume that only political gain motivated

 

STIbige’ pp. 6-12.

37
busing opponents, however. School board members on both
sides of the controversy described the job as hard work,
sometimes contending with calls from angry parents. Because
of some of his decisions on the school board, Angell said
that a number of friends turned against him and one person
caused him to lose his job.’58 Most board members served for
many years, not appearing to simply use their position as a
stepping stone for a higher political office.

The next group of cluster plan opponents I will analyze
are parents. Many anti-busers saw local schools as an
institution that unified their community by bringing parents
together for school functions and PTA meetings. Bruce Angell
II, whose children attended Gunnisonville Elementary School
in the northern part of the school district, reported that
parents at his local elementary school actively participated
in the PTA. The school PTA allowed neighborhood citizens to
reinforce community identity by uniting residents in a
common goal, whether it be organizing a carnival or school
fund raiser. When children in his neighborhood were bussed
to Genesee Street Elementary, parents of the Gunnisonville
PTA “lost their ability to function as a group” because
excluded from participation in the decision making of the
Genesee Elementary PTA.S9

Living Close to a school also facilitated family

58Angell I I .

”Ibid.

38
activities such as walking one's child to school or having
one's children home for lunch. One parent, Mrs. Small, said:

Your cluster plan is doomed from before it even starts,

doomed because you have made the majority of parents so

furious with your high handed tactics, hand picked
committee and deaf ears that they will never support
you...All the parents want is simply to have their
children home for lunch so they can better understand

and help solve the problems children encounter in a

morning or an afternoon of school.

Desegregation upset rituals important to many people by
bringing uncomfortable changes to traditional methods of
community building centered around the local school.

It is possible, however, that Small and others opposed
desegregation not because it upset important rituals as they
claimed but because they wanted to live in a community free
of blacks. Richard Beers said that the school board had
gathered information suggesting low parental involvement in
PTAs of many schools in the cluster plan. Hortense Canady
also questioned the level of attachment people had to
neighborhood schools, stating that desegregation opponents
created term the “Neighborhood School" after schools began
busing in the United States.61

-Still, as mentioned earlier, both busing supporters and

opponents saw the value of local elementary schools to the

neighborhood. In addition to Howard Jones's support of

 

”Minutes of the Board of Education Lansisg §chogl
Qisggisg. 6 July 1972, pp. 6—12.

61This information came from interviews with Canady and
Beers.

39

Neighborhood schools, Marc Cory, a Lansing School
administrator, who saw Lansing desegregation as successful,
also believed strong neighborhoods were important for good
local schools .62

Small's comments also suggest that many opposed busing
because they disliked being told what to do. Thirty six
letters to the Lansing State Journal from busing opponents
showed this. Katherine Little said "We are in a dictatorship
if our children are compelled to be bussed away from
neighborhood schools.“ Charles Pratt opposed the cluster
plan for a similar reason making reference to “land of the
free and choice." Mike Wagner said busing denied him his
“constitutional right to freedom of choice.“ These parents
believed desegregation took their power. This was probably
especially true of women during this time who, while
entering the work force in increasing numbers, were still
the parent who raised children during the day. Women wrote
seventeen of the 36 anti-busing letters to the Lansing
Journal between the first of March and the tenth of April.‘63

While busing opponents believed two-way desegregation
threatened their community, their comments suggested that

other possible motives influenced them. In a letter to the

board dated June 7, 1972 Mr. and Mrs. Agdanowski wrote:

 

‘QMarc Cory. Interviewed by author. Lansing Michigan, 15
April 1972.

'“Letters to the Editor, The Lansing State Jourssl. 1
March 1972 to 10 April 1972.

2

pa

.r’

40
Forced busing of children denies us the right to choose
the school that we wish our children to attend.... When
we moved to Lansing, a little-over a year ago, we made
inquires as to the educational facilities available in
Lansing. We then selected a home close enough to the
school so that our children would be in walking
distance.“ . ' - -
The Agdanowskis' letters reaffirmed concerns about lost
power discussed earlier. Upon asking what characteristics
must a school have for them to choose it, one might find
they wanted their children to attend a school with few
blacks or poor people. Eileen Bramen also suggest this:
People live in communities they feel comfortable in and
a school district they would like their children to be
in. If there are persons who would like their children
to attend a different school they should relocate in
the area of the school/55
Many whites felt uncomfortable with blacks and disliked the
cluster plan because it would bring the two groups together,
making the elementary school and their community less
comfortable. Not only would black and white children have to
interact with each other but, so would parents.
While parents writing letters to the editor did not
admit to viewing predominantly minority schools as inferior,
several teachers believed they did. Grand River Elementary

during the early 19703 had a student body composed of 62%

 

\ “Mr. and Mrs. D Agdanwoski. Letter to the school board.
7 June 1972. A copy of this letter can be found at the local
history office in the Lansing Public Library.

‘fiEileen Bramen. "City-Wide Curriculum" The Lansinq State
Journal. 27 March 1972.

 

7‘

41

white, 10% black and 26% Spanish sur name.“’While Grand
River Elementary was racially mixed, primarily working class
people attended it. It was paired with Post Oak Elementary
with students from middle and upper middle class
backgrounds. Parents from Post Oak Elementary School
believed that because primarily working class students
attended Grand River Elementary School, its teachers and
programs were inferior to Post Oak Elementary School.‘67
Other elementary schools in areas with high concentrations
of minorities also experienced this reaction. Teachers at
Michigan Avenue Elementary School believed that white
Lansing residents viewed their school as inferior and the
staff incompetent because primarily black students went
there.‘58 Negative views of predominantly minority schools
may explain Angell's claim that values of houses involved
with the cluster plan decreased in value.”

These statements suggest that on a one-to-one level
many whites felt comfortable with blacks yet when viewing
them as a group, associated them with inferior schools and
communities. High concentrations of blacks became synonymous

with decline. It is unfair, however, to fault any one

u.

 

6‘SState Journal. 23 April 1972.

"Patricia Howell, Interview by Author, Lansing, Michigan,
16 May 1993.

. 68Brown, "West Side Staff Back Schools," The Lsgsing
Jggrssl, 19 March 1972.

6(”Angell I I .

42
individual for thiSr This view of blacks as a group
permeated society, influencing the perceptions of all.
Angell's example clearly shows this type of prejudice.
Regardless of how a home owner viewed minorities, whether or
not they lived in the attendance boundary of a minority
school determined the value of their home. Inclusion in the
cluster plan reduced the value of homes because they were in
the attendance zone of a predominantly minority school.

A number of blacks also opposed two-way busing. J.C.
Williams,n’the most visible black opponent, believed blacks
would be more comfortable attending primarily black schools.
Williams, a clinical psychologist, felt black students from
impoverished areas experienced psychological and emotional

problems resulting from busing.71

He claimed that teachers
of black students bussed out of neighborhoods often were
insensitive to their life style. This made adjusting to the
social environments outside of their neighborhood difficult
for blacks.72 ‘ y ‘
The minority child is given a feeling of security by
the presence of adult members of his ethnic group. He

identifies with them and communicates with them more
readily than he does with others and the has an example

 

70No records showed J.C. Williams full first name.

71Affidavit in support of Defendants; 18 July, 1973, p.
2.

This and all other information related to the court case
is located in the information services department at the
Lansing public school's administrative building on 519 W.
Kalamazoo in Lansing.

721bid., p. s.

43

to look up to and respect.73

A survey conducted by the Lansing School Board in July
of 1973 suggested that some agreed with him. Of 263 families
interviewed in the Lincoln, Kalamazoo, Main and Michigan
attendance area 41% did not like their children being bussed
while 47% didrn This evidence suggest that not only whites
but also blacks believed attending school in a familiar
neighborhood with people of the same racial background added
an element of stability which would make academics easier.
Some of the students in this attendance area were already
involved in one-way busing and would continue to be bussed
regardless of the outcome of the cluster plan.

A deeper analysis of William's views, however, suggests
concern for something more than white teachers' inability to
teach black students or the desire to simply live separately
from whites. In a letter to the school board dated May 30,
1972 requesting them not to implement two way busing,
Williams says "White folk will rebel and we will have

u 75

nothing. Thus he opposed busing not only because he

preferred neighborhood schools but also because of the fear

I

of white hostility. Reginald Bush, a black student bussed to

 

 

nIbid., p. s.
p. 4.

 

7sCharles, Williams. letter to the Lansing School Board.
30 May 1972. This letter along with others I used are located
in the local history office at the Lansing Public Library.

44
Valley Farms Elementary School also feared white hostility.
During these first years, black and white students separated
themselves in the classroom.“

Social disorders which sometimes accompanied efforts to
deal with racial divisions concerned busing opponents. Many
also worried about-general social turmoil endemic to the
19603 and early 19703. Max Shunk believed that protest
occurring on college campuses had spilled over into high
schools.77 As earlier mentioned, racial turmoil struck
Lansing high schools during the 1970-1971 school year. Carol
Murray, 3 Lansing elementary teacher reported that both
teachers and students also protested against the Vietnam
War.78 These events probably added to the anxieties of
cluster plan opponents. Rather than desegregating the
schools which might generate more turmoil, he and other
parents believed that schools needed to implement greater
discipline on protesting students and emphasize traditional
academic subjects. According to Shunk, burdening the schools
with a mission beyond its traditional task prevented it from
succeeding at any function. This produced an unstable school
environment which detracted from academics. Thus its

connection with other unsettling social events also caused

 

76Reginald Bush. Interviewed by Author 19 August 1993,
East Lansing, Michigan.

"Shunk .

"Murray .

.J
C

 

45
people Oppose desegregation.

Local newspapers, according to Kron, exacerbated these
fears by sometimes describing the West Side in negative
terms, once calling it "The deteriorating West side.“ When a
pumpkin was smashed and a window was broken at a West Side
Halloween party, Kron said the local newspaper used the
headline “West Side Vandalism.” It did not report more
serious crimes which she said had occurred at other places
in the city that same day.79

Many anti-busers preferred that desegregation be
achieved on their own terms. Angell likened busing opponents
to motorcyclists who knew that wearing a helmet protected
them but opposed laws requiring it.“’I believe this is a
correct analogy in light of the anti-buser's comments. While
racial prejudice influenced some opponents of the cluster'
plan, the evidence suggests that attachment to neighborhood,
politics, a conservative ideology, and fear of turmoil also
motivated busing supporters. The evidence also suggests that
racial tolerance and sensitivity had improved. Part of this
improvement resulted from greater awareness of racial
problems which the debate of desegregation brought. Both
changes in anti-buser arguments from the 19603 to early
19703 and solutions which anti-busers themselves offered

described earlier suggest this.

 

79KI'OII .

80Angell II .

46

I stated above that desegregation and maintenance of
the neighborhood community conflicted. Paradoxically this
strong desire for community provided cluster plan supporters
with a tool to increase acceptance of the cluster plan. The
school administrators and community members addressed anti—
busers's concerns about the decline of education, loss of
community identity, and—lost parental control, by involving
them in the implementation of school desegregation. This
helped reduce some anti-buser concerns about the cluster
plan and facilitated its acceptance shortly after.
implementation. Busing supporters believed that over time
neighborhoods would become integrated making busing
unnecessary. Peoples of different racial groups would build
a community around the neighborhood school, creating a new

community identity and which overlooked racial differences.

Chapter‘l

Why Lansing Citizens Accepted the Cluster Plan

The recall election and two-way busing divided Lansing.
Despite this, people began the business of desegregation
shortly after Judge Fox ordered the cluster plan reinstated
in 1973. As a portent of the future, Max Shunk, leader of
CNS, and John Holmes, who organized the pro cluster plan
group CARE later became friends.81 Why did this occur? The
next three chapters examine factors contributing to the
smooth implementation of desegregation. The first examines
historical, economic and demographic factors while next two
examine actions of the school board, administrators and
community leaders.

Favorable demographic conditions partially explains why
the school district implemented desegregation relatively
smoothly. Blacks comprised a small percentage of Lansing's
population for most of its history, only recently composing
a substantial percentage. In 1850 13 lived in the city,
Composing approximately 2% of the population. While the

numbers slowly increased throughout the 19th century and

 

81John Holmes. Interviewed by Author. Lansing Michigan.
12 April, 1993.

47

48
first three decades of the 20th century, blacks still never
constituted more than-2% of the total population. After 1940
the number of blacks living in Lansing increased rapidly,
totaling 6,745 by 1960.&1This increase caused the outward
expansion of the black community located primarily on the
city's West Side. A small black population probably made
whites less anxious because even with desegregation, they
still remained the majority in the schools. Further it made
the logistics of desegregation easier because fewer students
had to be transported.

The Detroit School District had less success with
desegregation because it had both a large population and a
much higher percentage of blacks than Lansing. Too few white
students made intra-district desegregation difficult. To
remedy this Judge Stephen J. Roth ordered cross-district
desegregation which included the suburbs. The United States
Supreme Court over turned this plan in Millikes v. gradley
which limited cross-district plans for districts purposely
created to avoid desegregation.”

Robert Green's and Wilbur Cohen's study of the school
district in Kalamazoo, Michigan, showed that it achieved

desegregation without large public demonstrations and that

residents accepted it. Kalamazoo's black population, like

 

82Douglas K. Meyer. "The Changing Negro Residential
Patterns in Lansing, Michigan: 1850—1969," (Ph.D. Diss.,
Michigan State University, 1970), p. 145.

”Mills, p. 36.

49
that of Lansing was small-—less than 16% of the
approximately 16,000 students.“’In'Pontiac, which
experienced greater community unrest and violence, the black
population comprised about 30-40% of the school population.
The first year of desegregation saw a large percentage of
whites leave the school system.

Another demographic factor made Lansing ideal for
desegregation. Founded in 1847 as the state's capital,
Lansing remained small throughout the 19th century. In 1900
the city's population stood at only 16,845, less than 20%
its size during the early 19808 of approximately 125,000.
Not until the middle of the 20th century did Lansing
approach its present size.85

Because Lansing gained the bulk of its population
during the early-to-mideOth century, the percentage of
foreign immigrants remained small. This weakened ethnicity
in Lansing. In other American cities, ethnicity made
desegregation‘more difficult. At the turn of the century
over 500,000 people lived in Boston, many, such as the Irish

and Italians, resided in large ethnic neighborhoods. These

neighborhoods made ethnicity a greater force and

 

a"Wilbur J '. Cohen and Robert L. Green, Report to the
Honorable Nosl P. Foss Chisf Judqs of the Unitzsd Statss
District Courti Western District of Michigan. Southern
Division: Evaluation of the Results in the Kalamgoo Education

Orgs: 1979, pp. 2-3.

I35Kestenbaum, p. 77.

I.

(u

50

desegregation difficult.“'Because the bulk of Lansing's
black population did not arrive until the 19608, 19708 and
19808, the historically identifiable black neighborhood
remained relatively small. Blacks who arrived during the
19708 and 19803 took advantage of greater access to open
housing resulting in greater dispersement both in Lansing
and its adjacent communities.

The relatively small percentage of Lansing residents
born in another state, especially the South also explains
why the community reacted less violently to busing than
Pontiac. This reduced the chance that a new type of ethnic
group, such as a southern white community, might form in
Lansing. In Pontiac, 29,313 residents comprising-35.5% of
the population were born outside of Michigan as of 1970. Of
this number 18,774 came from the South. In Lansing, only
26,999 residents comprising 21.1% of the population were
born outside Michigan. Only 11,652 came from the South.
Further, substantial numbers came from the northeast and
north central part of the United States which may have
diluted any nascent southern community.m'

Lansing's diversified economy allowed it to endure

 

86Stephen Thernstrom. The Other Bostonians: Povsrtv and
Progress in the American Metrogalis, 1880-1979L (Harvard
University Press, Massachusetts 1980), p. 11.

87U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of the Population:1970
Vol. 1, Characteristics of the Population Part424. Michigan.
(U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 1973, pp.
300-302.

51

economic down turns and remain economically stable. This
stability prevented the population exodus and poverty caused
by economic decline in Detroit and Pontiac during the 19708
and 19808. While Lansing's population was approximately
130,000 in 1970, it was only a few thousand less in 1980 and
still remains at approximately 125,000 today. Economic
growth began early in the city's history. In 1863, the
Morrill Act established Michigan Agricultural College three
miles east of downtown Lansing. The city also was the site
of the state government. These two institutions provided
steady employment for residents and complemented industrial
growth which came later.‘8

At the turn of the century the auto industry
transformed Lansing into an industrial town with the
establishment of the Rec Motor Car Company and Oldsmobile.
Not only Oldsmobile but also the state government and
Michigan State University have employed many employers.
Michigan State University during the 19508 and 19608
expanded rapidly creating additional jobs. Not only did
these employers provide jobs, but also good wages. A stable
economy facilitated integration in several ways. It insured
an economically stable white population and eliminated
tensions associated with economic competition. Further, it
provided employment for blacks which contributed to a stable

black community.

 

“v.3. Census of the Population, pp. 101—102.

a

’71

52

During the 19608 economic conditions benefited blacks
despite discrimination. By 1970, the medium income in census
tracts composed primarily of blacks was approximately $8,000
a year, well above the poverty line. Further, no more than
24% of the population lived below the poverty line in these
census tracts. This facilitated the maintenance of black
neighborhoods which prevented social deviance that
accompanies poverty. This level of income among blacks also
allowed some to move into Lansing's white neighborhoods once
the city government passed open housing legislation.

Michigan State University may have also facilitated the
growth of liberalism in Lansing, attracting people who would
favor desegregation. Many young Michigan State University
graduates living in the Lansing area supported the school
board's efforts at desegregation graduates. It is also
likely that a number of Michigan State University faculty
lived in Lansing during the period of desegregation and
supported the board. Robert Green, Dean of the College of
Urban Development and Professor of Educational Psychology at
MSU directly participated in the board's defence by
organizing Group Associated for Integration Now (GAIN).

Lansing's economic structure may have contributed to a
social mind set which led residents to accept desegregation
_even though many opposed it. Thirty three percent of those

employed in the tri-county area held government jobs. Of

53

this 33%, 62% worked for the state government.”’With this
many people working for the government, a much larger
percentage may have been compelled to obey unpopular laws
than in other cities. While one must be careful about making
generalizations from limited evidence, the comments of
several people indicate this might be true. Angell, when
elected to the school board, wanted to follow closely legal
procedures in rescinding the cluster plan. This meant
postponing the vote for a week as the school board rules
required. Many busing opponents wanted to by-pass this legal
procedure. Angell insisted this procedure be followed,
however, and voted against rescinding the plan until the
next board meeting which angered many busing opponents.90

Annexation of several smaller school districts adjacent
to Lansing also facilitated desegregation. These smaller
districts maintained only elementary schools. Students
attending these smaller rural districts often attended
secondary school in Lansing as "tuition students". During
the mid and late 19503, a number of these districts decided
to become part of the Lansing School District. This made it

very large, encompassing rural areas as well as the central

city. These annexations increased the effectiveness of

 

89Tri-County regional Planning Commission. Housing Market
Analysis: Tri-County Region of Michigan, 1973, p. 16.

The Tri—County region consist of Clinton, Eaton and
Ingham Counties. Lansing is located at the center of this
three county cluster in the northwest corner of Ingham county.

”Angell II .

54
integration efforts by reducing the number of places people
could escape desegregation. This was important because
Lansing's racial minorities and the poor became concentrated
in the central city. The Waverly School District, just west
of Lansing, did not become part of the Lansing School
District. Its east boundary is no more than several blocks
from Sexton High School. School Administrator Marc Cory
believed the Waverly School District would have benefited
the Lansing School District because its affluent areas

brought economic strength.91

 

91NAACP v Lansinq Board of Education Defendant, Exhibit
79-Ae
-Cory.

Chapter 5

Desegregation in Lansing: 1960-1972

Despite a stable economy and favorable demographic
characteristics, Lansing's history of prejudice meant that
forces in the community also facilitated smooth
implementation of desegregation. School board members and
community leaders who implemented and supported small scale
desegregation during the 19608 helped prepare Lansing for
more comprehensive busing plans. Earlier Iddiscussed how
their intellectual arguments supporting busing may have
facilitated smooth implementation by raising the communities
consciousness of racial problems. In this part of my essay I
will discus specific programs such as small scale
desegregation during the mid and late 19603 which prepared
the school district for more comprehensive school
desegregation during the early 19708.

Some educators have suggested that this approach is
less effective because it causes greater white flight and
allows opposition to organize, causing greater turmoil which
leads to even more white flight. This symbiotic reaction to
incremental desegregation, however, did not occur in

Lansing. People would vehemently oppose a desegregation plan

55

:74! \

56
for a short time period and then accept it. Not only would
resistance decline but the experience gained from these
smaller plans allowed the school board and school
administrators to anticipate and resolve problems of larger
desegregation plans.

The school board began increasing racial contact by
hiring greater percentages of minorities. This process began
in 1951 when Lansing schools hired its first black school
teacher, Olivia Letts. When Olivia Letts first inquired
about employment in 1950, the Lansing School District told
her that they did not hire Negroes. A year later it reversed
this policy, removing a major barrier to racial cooperation.
Though slowly at first, Lansing began hiring greater numbers
of minority teachers. In 1965 Lansing Schools employed 52
minorities which composed 3.3 percent of the professional
staff. This same year Mrs. Letts became the principle of
Horsebrook Elementary, a predominantly white school. By the
1968-69 school year minorities composed 4.2% of the
professional staff and increased to 9.2% of the schools
professionals by 1972X” In 1973, The Stats Journsi reported
that 70 new minority teachers were hired, 22 more than the
preceding year.‘93 While increasing minority representation

on the School District's teaching staff increased racial

 

‘uJudith Brown. "Lansing Schools Hire More Minority
Teachers“ The State Journal, 15 October 1971.

‘nJudith Brown. "Minority Teachers Make Gains," The sgsss
Journsi, 23 July 1972.

57
contact, it also increased the need for desegregation
because it would further expose white students to minority
staff members.

The Lansing School District also hired Matthew W.
Prophet, a retired black brigadier general, for the position
of Deputy Superintendent. Prophet, the first black to serve
at a top administrative post, strongly supported school
desegregationJM'This trend enhanced employment
opportunities for future blacks in Lansing, most who would
not arrive until the 19608, 19703 and 19808. Creating a
racially balanced teaching and administrative staff
increased opportunities for'interracial contact. It also
made interracial contact less foreign to students and
parents when the school board implemented more comprehensive
desegregationwin 1973 and 1976.

‘ Along with'creating a racially balanced teaching staff,
the school board initiated several small scale desegregation
plans. Board member Tom Walsh, elected to the school board
in 1959, led the way to desegregation by encouraging the
school board to implement several small-scale busing plans.
After attending a number of school conventions which
discussed problems in urban schools, he introduced several
methods to help disadvantaged students in schools. After the

district in 1961—1962 built West Junior High School in a

 

“Judith Brown, "School Hires Black Deputy," State
Journal. 19 May 1972.

 

,1,
.

58
predominantly minority neighborhood, he convinced the board
to make it more racially balanced by transporting students
living in the attendance area of other Junior High schools
to West. By 1966, 350 white students were being bused into
West Junior High School for this purpose. In 1964, Lansing
schools added enrichment staff for economically
disadvantaged students.95
The board continued to increase interracial contact in

1964 through its decision to transport-some students from
Main Street Elementary to nearby elementary schools. This
came to be known as one-way busing. The school board
expanded this number when they closed Lincoln Elementary
School closed and sent students from Michigan Avenue,
Kalamazoo and Holmes Elementary Schools to predominantly
white elementary schools nearby. The total number
transferred eventually was 570 by 1970.'96

:iéFollowing the 1966 Citizens' Committee's Report, the
board developed a plan to transport 45 white tenth—grade
students from Everett High School to Sexton High School. The
plan would also send 28 students from Everett High School to

Eastern High School and 33 from Eastern High School to

 

”Tom Walsh. Lansing School Board Member 1959-1971.
Interviewed by author in Lansing Michigan. 18 May 1993.

9‘E’Judith, Brown. "What Happens After School Busing Stops, "
The StatspJournal. 19 March 1972.

. 59
.x:
Sexton High School.97 Thirty three black students would be
transferred from Sexton High School to Everett High School.

Resistance to the plan formed almost immediately after
the board adopted it. In mid August, a group from the Eaton
Downs neighborhood in South Lansing created the Peoples
Action Committee on Education (PACE) to Oppose busing. Led
by Howard Nichols, this grOup advocated neighborhood schools
and submitted a petition with over 2,000 namesfm’This
prompted the Ingham County Court to block desegregation for
the 1966-1967 school year. The court allowed the school to
precede with school integration the following year.

Others in the“community supported the board. Several
ministers spoke at the August 4th meeting supporting the
school board's actions along with the Democratic Party. A
number of citizens supporting secondary school desegregation
also spoke at the meetingffHelen Clark, a black women,
believed busing had benefited her child. Howard Jones said
white children living in his integrated neighborhood learned
Spanish from Hispanic childrenjE$Support for desegregation
by these Lansing citizens and community leaders may have

helped to legitimize the school board's action in the

public's eye.

97Robert Stuart. "South Side Group Against Busing." The
State Journal. 13 March 1970.

”Curt Homes. “Cross Busing Plan Adopted," The State
Journal. 8 August 1966.

”Lansinq School Board Minutes. 4 August 1966, pp. 18-22.

60

These earlier experiences with desegregation allowed
the school system to implement more effectively larger
desegregation plans. First, these early busing experience
showed the board the importance of‘a school lunch program
when busing. The early busing programs required that
children be bussed home for lunch. During the implementation
of the 1972 desegregation plan, elementary schools
undergoing desegregation began serving lunches to avoid
transporting students home. This early integration also gave
teachers more confidence with teaching students of different
ethnic backgrounds.

John Marrs, one time public—relations director for the
school, said that integrated classes made teachers
apprehensive at the beginning of secondary school
desegregation. It declined by 1972, however.100 Finally
William Webb, creator of school attendance zones, said
secondary school desegregation allowed him to develop
techniques for making desegregation run more smoothly.
Establishing attendance zones early and then notifying
parents early of the schools their children would attend
allowed them to adapt to the new setting.

Finally, early desegregation plans increased the level
of racial contact experienced by the community itself. There

has been no research showing to what degree this might have

 

100John Marrs. Interviewed by Author. Williamston,
Michigan, 2 June 1993.

 

 

61
improved white attitudes toward blacks. One thing is
certain, contact with people of a different racial
background became less foreign for some of Lansing's
children. Further, some of the schools involved in the 1972
cluster plan were also involved with these early one-way

busing plans.

Chapter 6

Implementation of the Cluster Plan and the Recall Election

. In 1972 the School boardfis approved its most ambitious
desegregation effort, a two-way busing plan referred to
earlier as the cluster plan. For the first time white
elementary students would be transported to schools located
in primarily black neighborhoods~on a non—voluntary bases.101
While very controversial, this plan greatly increased the
level of contactzbetween black and.white students and their
parents.

Though interested in improving race relations, the
school board believed that allowing citizens to voice their
opinions on desegregation might reduce resistance to this
plan. On April 26, the Citizens' Advisory Committee
submitted its.report to the school board which included four
desegregation plans. Rather than approving a plan, the
school board held a number of hearings from May to June
which gave the.public a chance to say which of the four

desegregation plans they preferred. The most comprehensive

plan involved transporting over 10,500 students. Two other

 

101Judith Brown. "School Board Members Vote to Adopt a
Busing Plan“ The State Journal. 2 June 1972.

62

63

less comprehensive plans required that between 6,000 and
5,000 students be bussed.102 In addition a minority report
proposed an even less comprehensive plan than the other
three. To what extent this mitigated fear and anger which
might be directed against future busing plans is difficult
to determine. It may, however, have given people some
feeling of control. While people may not be able to stop
busing, perhaps they could control the rate of
implementation.

The hearings also allowed busing supporters, many who
were white, to state their support for the plan. This
visibility helped transfer the conflict into one which

transcended black against white. Anti-busers would have to

contend with a sizable white opposition, which included some

of their friends. This fact may have prevented major public
demonstrations.

Not only did the board provide the public a chance to

voice their concerns, they also approved the smallest of the

four possible desegregation plans the Citizen's Committee
presented to them. The NAACP and other strong supporters of

desegregation considered the desegregation plan selected by

the board as weak. The plan called for transporting students

only marginal distances. Thus the board omitted the long bus

rides which would have provided anti-busers with additional

reasons for Opposing it.

 

“Ring State Journal. 23 April 1972.

   

 

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64

The plan covered a four-year period and involved four
phases. The first phase involved 900 students and 8
elementary schools which were divided into two clusters.
Cluster 1 included Barnes Elementary, Elmhurst Elementary,
Lewton Elementary and Main Elementary Schools. Cluster 2
included Cavanagh, Everett, Maple Hill and Michigan
Elementary Schools. The-original plan called for
kindergarten through second.grade to remain in their
neighborhood schools while‘splitting grades 3~4 and 5-6
among the cluster schools.103 Students would walk to their
neighborhood schools and then ride the bus between .8 and 4
miles to another school. The plan cost approximately
$100,000 initially. This figure more than doubled when the
school board Created more clusters after the first year."“
The second phase would bring in 5 more elementary schools.
During the third year the school board would study the need
for bringing even more schools into the plan.

Judge Marvin J. Salmon of the Ingham County Circuit-
Court nearly prevented the school board from approving the
cluster plan. In response to a suit filed by James E. Slack
on behalf of his sons, he signed on June 14, a court order
blocking two-way desegregation. Slack's attorney, Lee A.

Farhat, charged the school board with making an

 

103Judith Brown. “School Board Members Vote to Adopt Busing
Plan” The State Journal 2 June 1972.

1mm In Review, p. 6.

’v
I

A

I-

.._A

‘1

65

“irreversible act” which would cause “irreparable harm“ to
his client. The school board's attorney, Stuart Dunnings,
petitioned to move the case into the federal courts. On June
26, Judge Fox took jurisdiction and allowed the Lansing
School Board to approve the cluster plan.105

On June 29, 1972 the board voted 5-3 to adopt the plan.
Those voting in favor were Richard Beers, Kathryn Boucher,
Hortense Canady, Nellie Nussdorfer, and Clarence Rosa voted
for the plan. Vernon Ebersole, Clara Harrington, and Michael
Walsh opposed it. Ray Hannula who opposed the plan was
absent for the vote.106

Because the school board implemented the cluster plan
before many in education knew about the power of recall as a
tool against desegregation, they never believed the
community would recall them. Even when petitions began’K
circulating, Beers believed the board had good community
support and thus the recall would fail.107 Much to their
surprise, on July 18 Citizens for Neighborhood Schools (CNS)
led by Max Shunk, submitted a petition with over 11,000
names to recall the five board members who voted for the

plan. Board members‘tried to block the recall citing that it///)

was initiated over policy difference. Judge Fox, however,

 

1°5Judith Brown, “Court Lifts Ban on Busing," Lansing
State Journal; 27 June, 1972.

‘°‘Ibid., p. 1.

107366128 .

66
prevented them from doing this. Charged with judging the
names on the petitions for their own recall, the board
members and their supporters worked diligently to strike off
and nullify questionable names. Despite this, busing
opponents obtained the necessary number and the recall vote
was set for November 7, 1972.

Citizens Against the Recall Election (CARE), led by Jon
Holmes, used radio, and T.V. to support the board. Holmes,
an insurance salesman,-had several children who had attended
Lansing integrated high schools and had a positive
experience. The groups stressed-the quality and service of
board members who, before school desegregation, had been
popular within the community. The five combined had over 35
years of experience.108

A number of religious leaders also publicly supported
the board as they did in 1966. The Reverend Alexander
Zaleski, Bishop of Lansing, Rabbi Philip Frankel, Reverend
Samuel E. Kidd Executive Secretary of the Michigan Council
of Churches, Reverend William Work, and the Lansing Area
Council of Churches all supported the school board.109

Michigan State University professor Robert Green, supported

the school board by organizing the Group Associated for

 

108John Holmes. Interviewed by Author. Okemos, Michigan,
12 April 1993.

109"Editorials," The Lansing State Journal, 30 October,
1972.

67

Integration Now (GAIN).110 The leadership of the UAW and the
AFL-CIO also publicly supported the school board, along with
the State Journal, League of Women Voters, and the Teachers
Union.111

Despite the efforts of CARE, the five board members
supporting the cluster plan were recalled by a solid 55%
majority. The recalled board members were shocked.112 In
looking back, however, several of those recalled felt the
vote functioned as a catharsis, allowing people to displace
their anger. Further, the recall election demonstrated that
the recalled board members had the support of a sizable
minority of whites. Blacks at this time comprised less than
20% of the total population and thus for 45% to vote no,
there had to be substantial numbers of whites supporting the
school board members. Even in the predominantly white 2nd
and 3rd ward, at least 25% in every precinct opposed recall.
Tensions soon decreased as the community set a out to elect

new school board members.113

 

 

Tm"Push for Integration“ The Lansing State Journal. 12
March, 1972.

111Pat Murphy. "Its the Dems All the Way" The Lansing
State Journal. 6 October 1972.

"Lansing Council Urges No On Recall" The State Journal.
10 January 1973.

112Beers .

TBBrown. “Recall Vote Has Surprise," The State Journal.
12 November 1972.

Chapter 7
The Poet Recall Period: 1973-1978

Before examining methods school administrators and
community leaders employed to reduce tensions, a summary of
events immediately preceding the recall election helps set
the stage for-the next phase of—deségregation. After the
five board members were-redalled, Governor William Millikan
appointed five interim members to insure basic functions
were carried out until January 11, 1973 when elections to
replace the recalled board members would be held. The five
new members were Bruce Angell II, Joan Hess, Joseph Hobrla,
Max Shunk, and J.C. Williams, all endorsed by CNS."‘

The new school board voted on February 1 to repeal the
cluster plan. Several weeks later, the NAACP brought suit to
reinstate the cluster plan. Judge Fox, however, ordered the
parties to settle out of court with the board. The board and
NAACP failed to come to an agreement and on August 10th
Judge Fox reinstated the cluster plan pending a decision on
the NAACP's suit against the new board. Thus despite the

recall election, school desegregation went along as planned

 

11"Schoolsin‘Review, p. 2.

68

.1\
a-

69

in the fall of 1973.115 Judge Fox's decision to reinstate the
cluster plan made future school board candidates' position
on desegregation less important. As already seen, Lansing
schools made significant progress toward full desegregation
on their own, the ruling of Judge Fox provided the final
step. In 1975 Judge Fox ruled in favor of the NAACP and
ordered the board to adopt a more comprehensive integration
plan. The new school board represented by Fred Newman
brought the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled
against them. Later, anti-busing forces tried to persuade
the 0.8. Supreme Court to consider their case. This effort
failed, however.116

_While Judge Fox insured the implementation of the
cluster plan, it was primarily individuals within the
community who facilitated its acceptance. Many of these
people already performed important functions to this end
before the recall vote yet saw the importance of their
efforts expand. They were school administrators, new board
members and teachers who insured that tensions caused by the
recall vote did not continue. Neighborhood association
leaders also helped directly and indirectly by revitalizing
areas of Lansing where many white students were being bused.

It is helpful to return to concerns voiced by busing

opponents when analyzing school administrators's actions

 

j,

"5mm. ,‘ p. 2.
11";big., p. 3.

 

70
that facilitated desegregation. While school administrators
may not have agreed with the busing opponents' motives, they
addressed their concerns when implementing desegregation
plans. School administrators needed the cooperation of all
people, regardless of their views on desegregation if the
cluster plan was'to succeedu'

To assuage opponents' concerns that academic standards
might be affected by the Cluster plan, Carl Candoli -
develOped a standardized test to be administered across the
district. He then used the results to show parents that
students' academic achievement had not declined.r” Eva
Evans, Director of Elementary Education, created a committee
composed of teachers to insure that the district place only
teachers with a positive attitude toward students of
different racial groups in schools participating in the
cluster plan. The School District added lunch program to
those elementary schools in the cluster plan. The absence of
lunch programs made earlier desegregation efforts more
difficult because most elementary students walked home for
lunch. A lunch bus returned those who lived far from school
to their homes and then back to school. The school district
we

expanded its lunch program to eliminate this. William

Webb, creator of attendance boundary lines, informed parents

 

.

1”Eva Evans. Telephone Interviewed by author, 21
September, 1993.

1“Eva Evans. It is possible that this test is the same
conducted by Dr. Richard Benjamin.

 

71

what school their children would attend well in advance of
the school years first day. This allowed both students and
parents to visit and become familiar with their school long
before the new school year began. Initially used for
secondary school desegregation, Webb expanded this policy to
include elementary schools while implementing the cluster
plan.119

Principals at some elementary schools invited parents
to assist in guiding students to the right bus before they
left. They called on those who opposed the cluster plan
along with those who supported it. Lewton and Main Street
Elementary Schools did this successfully, preventing a few
parents from trying to disrupt classes.120

The West Side Neighborhood Association sponsored
several parties and visitation days so new parents and
students would be less apprehensive about attending the
predominantly minority elementary schools on the West Side.
Finally, the parents of Post Oak Elementary School, paired
with Grand River Elementary School, led after-school
activities for all the students. Involving parents in
something they disapproved contributed toward the acceptance
of busing.

Involving parents may have brought an additional

benefit. According to Kron, Main Street Elementary School's

 

12°Ibid .

72
good condition and teaching staff surprised many parents of

1m Patricia Howell said Grand

white students bussed there.
River Elementary School'sttaff also pleasantly surprised
parents of children from‘Post Oak Elementary School. Thus
school desegregation may have helped erased earlier
stereotypes some peeple had of urban schools. One must be
careful in making this contlusions.JI was not able to'
interview any anti-busers attending either of these schools
who may haVe found them to poor.

The boardfalso spent additional money on schools
participating in the cluSter plan. As earlier stated, the
prospect of having their children attend Grand River
Elementary-School made parents from Post Oak Elementary
School apprehensive. The lack of a school band and other
programs at Grand River Elementary School may have
contributed to their fears. After the school board
incorporated Grand River Elementary School in the cluster
plan of 1974, it received the same programs found at Post
Oak Elementary School."2 More research is needed to
determine to what extent this occurred at other schools.

Angell's statement that the post-recall board allocated

money to Lansing's urban schools suggest several other

 

'21 Ibid.

‘Zznowel 1 .

(.J

73
schools received money.123
Finally, the children of school administrators and
community leaders supporting desegregation attended Lansing
schools. This prevented busing opponents from accusing them

of forcing desegregation on a community in which their own
children did not participate. Richard Beers, William Webb,
Carl Candoli; John Helms, and Howard Jones all had children
who attended Lansing schools during the period the community
underwent desegregation and cited the positive experience as
a reason they supported integration{”‘
While the post-recall school board sought to end the
cluster plan through court action, they simultaneously
complied with the court order. They made operating the
school systems a higher priority than eliminating busing.125
The new board could have fired Candoli who supported
desegregation because his contract as superintendent would
soon end. They kept him, however, because of his strong
personality, managerial skills, ability to communicate well
with others, and his“effectiveness in mediating between

different factions on the school board. Further, Candoli and

Shunk worked well despite their different views toward

 

123Angell I I .

12"The information supporting this comes from interviews
Beers, Webb, Holmes, and Jones. Candoli states on page 360 of
the text of N CP ansin ra ch v. Lansin card 0 Educ t'o
that he has two children in the cluster plan.

125Evans .

74

school desegregation.126

Busing supporter Gilda Richardson said Max Shunk also
listened to others well and, while opposed to busing,
complied with the court order to implement school
desegregation. Kathy Pennoni, a board member who favored the
cluster plan, said she voted for Shunk for board president
because “of the excellent job he had done guiding a divided
board. He has been fair to both minority and majority on the
board.""27

In 1976 the school board, with a majority of busing
opponents, passed a resolution allowing Superintendent
Candoli to assist the organization ”Kids and Community," a
group created to reduce anxieties of parents over the

implementation of desegregation.”8

Headed by Joan Zajac and
sponsored by the League of Women Voters, this group held
public meetings to discuss concerns and answer questions
about busing that parents might have. More research needs to
be done about other activities it may have done which went

beyond community meetings. The organization "For Kids and

COmmunity“ was an example of another citizen's group working

 

12°This in formation comes from interviews with Eva Evans,
Gilda Richardson, Bruce Angell, and William Webb.

127 Ute Auld. The State Journal “School Board Elects
President; Hannula tops Shunk to Win Presidency. " 9 July 1976.

128'13vans .

75
to reduce tensions desegregation might cause.129

Several community groups not connected to the school
board facilitated school desegregation. The West Side
Neighborhood Association'organized by Anne Kron played the
greatest role outside of the NAACP in encouraging the
implementation.ofttwoéway busing; The Krone came to Lansing
during the late 19608 because they wanted to raise their
children in an integrated community. Local realtors,
however, tried to divert them from the West Side to a more
affluent neighborhood such as Whitehills in East Lansing
because Kron's husband had-just completed law school at the
University of Michigan and many realtors thought they were
wealthy.

This experience led Anne Kron to found West Side
Neighborhood Association which exposed realtors refusing to
show whites houses in integrated neighborhoods. Before Kron
and the West Side Neighborhood Association, few integrated-
communities existed. Most people in Lansing considered
communities with both black and white residents to be in
“transition” or in the process of changing to all black.
According to Kron the city neglected these neighborhoods.
During the years prior to the mid to late 19603, parks,
schools, and the general appearance of the West Side
declined and city services dropped off. The West Side

Neighborhood Association helped reverse this trend by

 

1fifibig.

76

attracting people who wanted to live in an integrated
neighborhood. Further; they printed news letters and
canvased their neighborhood to persuade residents tO avoid
realtors who participated in<block busting. By publishing
the names of cooperative and uncooperative realtors, the
West Side Neighborhood Association slowed white flight and
maintained racial balance.130

Declining neighborhood schools impeded building an
integrated neighborhood on the West Side. Population
increases occurring prior tO the early 19608 had reversed,
owing tO the capital expansion and construction Of
Interstate highway 496. This caused student enrollment tO
decline in many West Side schools, threatening them with
closure. Two-way busing Offered a way to keep West Side
schools Open and making the West Side neighborhood more
attractive to potential home owners. The first busing Of
students into the West Side occurred during the year before
the cluster plan and.was voluntary. This added 36 new
students and prevented the school from being closed.131

The West Side Neighborhood Association provided a model
which other community groups on Lansing's North Side, East
Side, and Southeast Side followed during the early tO mid

19708. These groups also maintained their neighborhoods,

making them less threatening to white students bussed

 

”OXIDE e .

131Iloici .

§L

 

77

there.132 While the racial balance in these neighborhoods did
not exempt them from the cluster plan, it contributed tO a
reputation for being integrated rather than all black. A
favorable racial balance at Forest View Elementary SchOOl on
Lansing's Southeast Side, however, exempted it from the
cluster plan.133

While helpful in maintaining Lansing's minority
communities, these groups, along with other whites living in
integrated neighborhoods, created a pOOl Of people
experienced with interracial contact. This came from working
together on revitalizing urban neighborhoods in Lansing.
Their children became acquainted with children from
different racial groups because they not only attended.
schools with minorities but also played with them after
school. According to Murray, this most effectively broke
down racial barriers . 13"

Lansing's model cities program also contributed tO
improving neighborhoods where white students were bussed. It
gave college educated blacks and whites the opportunity tO
revitalize communities using large grants awarded to Lansing

neighborhoods. These neighborhoods formed task groups and

elected members to organize projects. Task groups on the

 

1”Mike Hughs. "Many Lansing Politicians Prefer Old
Neighborhoods” Lansinq State Journal. 26 October 1975.

 

1335101188 .

1“Murray .

78
West Side, were Often integrated by race and gender. The
integrated nature Of these projects made those working on
them advocates for desegregated schools. Parents working
long hours on these projects Often brought their children
along where they played with children Of a different race.135

School administrators, board members and community
organizations made it easier for teachers, parents and
students to come together by taking steps tO insure
desegregation was implemented smoothly and by preventing
urban neighborhoods from declining. As students began
interacting with members Of different racial groups, so did
parents. When integration began, school PTAs held meetings
in alternate communities to accommodate the transition. Once
together, they began devising new strategies tO make the
cluster plan successful.

Many teachers also contributed to an educational
environment conducive tO school desegregation. Patricia
Howell, a teacher at Grand River Elementary School described
a number Of activities which facilitated integration. As
Kron had done on the West Side, a few parents invited
students from Post Oak Elementary School tO come over and
play with kids from Grand River Elementary School. During
the winter,-teachers and kids also camped in cabins at an
environmental area the school owned by the Lansing School

District south Of Lansing. This winter-time experience gave

 

1"’ljBaker .

79
students the Opportunity to forget race and class
differences and have a gOOd time. Cold weather further
enhanced bonding Of these students.

Sometimes students made desegregation successful in
their own way. Ervin fMagic“ Johnson who was bussed out Of
the SextOn attendance area tO Everett High School during the
1973-74 schOOl year Offers a gOOd example Of this. At first
Johnson disliked busing because it forced him tO attend an

136

all white school with a poor basketball team. This

perception changed, however, after the first few months.
When put in the same school black and white students, found
ways tO break down racial barriers. In Johnson's case,
sports helped unite blacks and whites at Everett High
School.

It is true that I hated missing out on Sexton. And for
the first few months I was miserable at Everett. But
being bussed tO Everett turned out tO be one Of the
best things that ever happened tO me. It got me out Of
my own little world and taught me how tO understand

white people, how to communicate and deal with them.137

Johnson's statement suggest, that desegregation could
improve understandings between racial groups.

When Black students felt alienated by the white rock
music that was piped into the lunchroom, I went tO see
the principal. In a polite and non-threatening way, I
explained the situation. Soon we had black music tOO.
The black kids started feeling more comfortable, and
the white kids liked those Motown songs almost as much

 

1“William Novak. My Life: Ervin Magic Johnson. (New York.
1992), p. 24.

137Novak, p. 24.

P.

80

as we did.133

-.

Thus, not only did some blacks and whites learn to
understand each other better but in some cases, shared the
other's interest. This also shows that the principal's
tolerance and flexibilitywent a long way tO improving
relatiOns. ‘ h ' ‘

Desegregation did not always produce results this
positive. Lewton Elementary, paired with primarily black
Main Street Elementary School, tried to vote in PTA Officers
before parents Of the Main Street Elementary School could
attend the year's first meeting. At Michigan Avenue_
Elementary School, one parent told their child not to play
with any black students.139

As described earlier, fights erupted in the high
schools during the early 1970s. Throughout the 19708 some Of
these problems continued. Debbie Taylor, a student at Sexton
during 1979-1980, reported that black and white students
created their Own ”turfs," including their own separate rest
rooms. Extreme racial tension led Taylor to drop out of
school, not returning until she was twenty three. She

believed racial tensions have cooled since that time,

 

138Ibid. , p. 25.

139Kron .

 

 

 

 

a
. ,
g .. ' . ,
~ ‘ e
o .
. .
‘ x
. . . 4 .1
i ' , .
4 I
. .

81

however.”0 When Reginald Bush attended Otto Middle School
during the late 19708, fights broke out between whites and
blacks in areasladjacent to the school yard. Later, while
attending Sexton High School, Bush again found racial
tensions very high. Several racial conflicts between his
teachers and he caused him to drop out Of the.10th grade.
Not all was bad, however. The fights at Otto Middle School
decreased during the late 19703, when black and white
students grew tired Of fighting each other. After leaving
Sexton, Bush returned to Eastern High School where he found
a more amicable racial climate. The friendliness of his
teachers helped Bush succeed in his classes and ultimately
earn his diploma.““

A 1975 study by Ned S. Hubbell and Associates which
interviewed 1,665 students, 580 teachers and 1,254 parents
on their attitudes toward the cluster plan in 1975 showed
that on a whole the efforts Of teachers were successful.
Forty four percent Of students involved with the cluster
program said teachers helped them get used to their'

school.”Q Forty three percent said that their class mates

 

1mDebbie Taylor, Interview by author, Lansing Michigan,
9 May 1993.

141Bush.

1“Ned S. Hubbell and Associates, Inc. Attitudes Toward
The Clgster Plan In The Lansingy Michigan Public Schools, Port
Huron, Michigan, 1975, p. 34.

This study is located in the information services
department in the Lansing schools administration building.

82
helped them. Only 15% said that their parents helped them
get used tO their school.

The Hubbell and Associates' study also showed that
while teachers reported a number Of problems with the
cluster plan, none stood out strongly. Eighteen percent said
the cluster plan had some educational disadvantages, 16%.
said it took children from their neighborhood, 16% said
busing was a disadvantage, 15% cited parent inconvenience,
and 14% a shortened-lunch hourum? Forty seven percent Of the
teachers felt a major benefit was that the.cluster plan
helped children-get to know and get along better with
children Of a different.race.“‘

Finally this same study showed a significant increase
in the number Of parents who supported the cluster plan,
though the majority still Opposed it. When asked “how did
you feel about the cluster planuwhen you first heard about
it, only 16% Of former cluster parents and 21% of present
cluster parents favored it. Two years latter 36% of former
cluster parents and 32% Of present cluster parents favored
it. Opposition to the plan dropped to just over 50% for both
groups.“5 The study also showed that the cluster plan had
increased student's acceptance Of those Of another race or

ethnic background. Over 80% Of the parents with children in

 

1“Ibid., p. 23.

 

W'Ibid. , p. 65.

 

“SIbid. , p. 66.

 

 

.)_.

Nu

83
cluster schools felt they had friends Of another race and
over 70% believed that the racial make-up Of the school
contributed to this. Over 80% said their children felt good
about attending school with children Of another race or
ethnic group.““ Finally the study showed that a solid
majority, over 60%, felt‘the schools did a gOOd job. Less
than 10% felt the schools did a poor job.

The controversy-generated by the recall election died
quickly after the.election. Few people attended a community
hearing in 1975 regarding the cluster plan. Those who did
attend supported the cluster plan. Elections for school
board members held in April Of that year resulted in the
election Of twO cluster plan supporters, Kathleen Pennoni
and Gilda Richardson.“7

At the beginning of the 1976-1977 school year the
Lansing School District expanded the number Of schools
participating in the cluster program tO twenty. The new
cluster plan included the Vivian Riddle Elementary School
located in the heart Of the West Side neighborhood. The post
recall board originally wanted to make this elementary a
neighborhood school which probably would have re-segregated
some minorities attending primarily white elementary schools

at the time. Over 6,000 students participated in the new

 

1“Ibid., p. 26.

1”NAACP v. Lansinq School Board. pp. 616, 622.

84

plan with approximately 2,500 transported out Of their
neighborhood. The new plan included first and second graders
for the first time. Despite the expansion Of desegregation,
schools Opened without incident.“8

I believe-sChOOl administrators and community leaders
helped defused anger by involvingrparents in implementing
desegregation and restoring a sense Of control to anti-
busers. Thus, according to Richard Beers, the methods Of
insuring successful integration became ends inthemselves.149
By involving the whole community in its implementation,

positive interracial contact increased not just between

students, but also among parents.

 

1“fighgglgin Review, pp. 2-3.

1”Beers .

L’s

COIOLUSIOI

As Of 1993 Lansing is still under a court order which
requires that they maintain desegregated schools. During
this year 20,685 students attended Lansing Schools. The
racial composition Of the student body was as follows: 53%
white, 30% black, 11% Hispanic, and 4% Asian. NO elementary
school had more than 51% or less than 13% black; more than
70% or less than 33% white and more than 36%; or less than

4% with Hispanic sur-name.”°

While the percentage of
minorities increased in Lansing, whites still.constitute a
majority Of the population.

Greater integration in Lansing neighborhoods has
reduced the need tO transport students for purposes Of
desegregation. Many students are bussed only because they
live far from their schools. Because fewer students attend
Lansing Schools than when the school first implemented the
cluster plan in 1972, some elementary schools have been
closed requiring that the attendance boundaries Of others be

increased. This made integrating students from racially

different neighborhoods easier. Some neighborhoods became

 

150Fourth Friday Report by the Lansing School District,
2 October, 1972.

85

86

racially balanced and no longer required busing. According
to Howell, Grand River and Post Oak Elementary schoOls no
longer are involved with clustering there students because
these communities have and an acceptable ethnic balance in
there schools.151

I believe that because a relatively small group Of
individuals prepared Lansing for desegregation, it generated
considerably less turmoil than other Michigan cities. School
board members and administrators approved and implemented
smaller desegregation plans which prepared the community for
larger ones. Neighborhood leaders revived racially mixed
communities that participated in desegregation which
probably made them less threatening tO'whites. School board
members who replaced those recalled still followed through
with desegregation implementation and people on both sides
Of the issue cooperated tOJprevent violence. Finally school
administrators responsible for planning, promoting, and
implementing desegregation found ways to involve parents,
teachers and even students. I believe the combined effort Of
these Lansing leaders helped prevent violence which might
have otherwise occurred. Based on evidence from the report
by Hubbell and Associates, statements by teachers and
students, I also believe desegregation in Lansing succeeded
in increasing racial friendships and in improving race

relations over the long term.

 

1S1Howell.

r.)

87

Many readers may find my conclusion that desegregation
helped achieve better race relations in Lansing tO be
somewhat Optimistic. Admittedly, I was only able tO
interviewed a few people who had experienced desegregation
directly. Further, the majority those I interviewed were
people who favored desegregation such as the recalled school
board members and school administrators who favored the
plan. As Of 1994 they-still believe that desegregation
benefited Lansing.,.

Had I been able tO interview_more students who had
experienced desegregation, perhaps a different picture would
have emerged. I believe that improving race relations at
Lansing's three high schools has been more difficult than
with its elementary schools. Along with the views Of high
school students presented in this essay, several people I
have talked with informally say that racial problems still
persist and have even gotten worse. Others, however, have
said race relations between students are pretty gOOd.

In a broader context, the Lansing desegregation
controversy showed that public schools during the 1960s and
19708 were integral parts to neighborhoods. They not only
disseminated academic knowledge tO students but also bonded
neighborhood communities. Both busing opponents and
proponents believed local schools fostered a sense Of
identity and provided an element Of stability. Social and

political turmoil gripping the nation during the late 19608

88

and early 19708 probably made the neighborhood school even
more important as a sanctuary from instability. Because it
isolated different racial groups; however, the neighborhood
school system made increasing inter~racial contact
difficult. This aspect concerned desegregation supporters.

Busing supporters believed that desegregating the
schools would lead to integrated housing. Once integrated
housing had been achieved, the neighborhood school would be
ideal for uniting people Of different racial groups. This,
they believed, would bring not only better education to
minorities but also units a racially and economically

divided society.

BILIOGRAPH!
Secondary WOrks

Bell, Derrick, ed. Shades Of Brown: New Perspectives on
School Desegregation. New York: Columbia University,
1980.

Buell, Emmett H. Schogl Desegregation and Defended
Neighborhoods Lexington, Massachusetts, D.C. Health

and Company, 1982.

Darden, Joe T., et al. Detroit Race and Uneven Development.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.

Formisano, Ronald P. Boston Against Busing: Race. Class and
Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapel Hill: The
University Of North Carolina Press, 1991.

Green, Robert L, and Wilbur J. Cohen. Report to the
Honorable Noel P Fox. Chisf Judge Of ths United States
District Court. Western District of Michigan. Southern
Division: An Evaluation Of the Results Of the Kalamasgg
School Desegregation Order in Michelle Oliver. stfal..
Plaintiffs. V. Kalamssoo Board Of Education. Et.Al.L
Defendants [368 F. Supp. 143 (W.D. Mich. S.D.

1973)], 1979. ‘

Hochschild, Jennifer L. The New American Dilemma: Liberal
Democracv snd School nsmocgacy. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984.‘

Kestenbaum, Justin. ut“ 'l erne s: ated
Historv Of Greater Lansing. Woodland Hills, California:
Windsor Publications. 1981.

Kirby, David J. Political Strategies in Northern School
Desegregation. Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Health
and Company, 1973.

Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History Of Brown v.

Board of Education and Black America's Struqqls for
Eguality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976.

89

90

Kirp, David L. Just Schools: The Idea of Racial Eguality in
Amerigan Education. Berkeley: University Of California
Press, 1982.

Metcalf, George. From Little Rock to Boston: The History Of
School Deseggegation. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press. 1983.

Meyer, Douglas K. "The Changing Negro Residential Patterns
in Lansing, Michigan, 1850-1969.“ Diss. Michigan State
University, 1970.

Mills, Nicolaus, ed. Busing U.S.A. New York: Teachers
College, Columbia University, 1979.

Novak, William. My Life: Ervin Majic Johnson. New York,
1992. '~“

Lansing School District. Schools is Review. Lansing
Michigan, 1978.

Russell, Leroy Ernest. “A Study Of Change and Conflict in.
Court Ordered Busing as a Means Of School Desegregation
in an Urban School District“ Diss. Michigan State
University 1978» . “E

Rist, Ray C, ed. Desegregated Schools: Appraisals Of an
American Experiment. New York: Academic Press, 1979.

Rossell, Christine H. The Carrot or the Stick for School
Desegregation Policy.-Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1990. ' " 1' .

Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Blssk Equality: 1954—
19§O. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.

Thernstrom, Stephan. The Othsr Bostonians: Povertv and
Ppogress in the Aserican Metropolis. 1880-1970.
Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1980.

Tri- County Regional Planning Commission for Clinton, Eaton
and Ingham Counties. Community Profile and Data Bpok:
Social and Economic Characteristics Of the Tri-Countv
Region. 1973.

Tri-County Regional Planning Commission for Clinton, Eaton
and Ingham Counties. Housing market Analysis: Tri

County Region Of Michigan. 1973.

91

Webb, William. “A Study Of the Desegregation Of the Lansing,
Michigan Elementary Schools and the effects Of that
desegregation on White and Non-white Enrollment." Diss.
Michigan_State University 1980.

Yarmolinsky, Adam, et al, ed. Race Schooling in the Citv.
Harvard College, 1981.—

N.

« Primary Sources,

Affidavit in Support Of Defendant - Appellant'stserqencv
Application For Stav Of the District Court's

Preliminsry Injuncpion. State Of Michigan County Of
Ingham. 18 July 1973.

Lansing School Report. Fourth Friday Report. 2 October 1993.
Minutes Of the LansingchhOOl Board Meeping.‘4 August 1966.

Minutss Of the Board Of Education Lansinq School District. 6
July 1972.

NAACP, Lansinq Branch v. The Lansing Board of Education.

Ned S. Hubbell and Associates,Inc. Attitudes Toward The

Cluster Plan In Lansinq Public Schools. Port Huron,
Michigan, 1975.

The Citizen's Advisory Committee.”Report on Educational
Opportunity. Lansing, Michigan,“ 1966.

The Citizen's Advisory COmmittee. “Report on Educational
Improvement. Lansing, Michigan," 1971.

The Citizen's Advisory Committee. “Report on Educational
Opportunity. Lansing, Michigan," 1972.

The Lspsing State Journal. Years 1964-1975.

0.8. Bureau Of the Census. Census Of the Population:1970
VOl. 1. Charscteristicsfof the Population Part 24,
Michigan. Washington D.C., 1973.

Interviews

Angell II, Bruce. Interviewed by Author. 4 May 1993, tape
recorded Dewitt Michigan.

Baker, Dick. Interviewed by Author. Lansing Michigan. 2
March 1993.

92

Beers, Richard. Interviewed by Author, 20 May 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Boucher, Kathy. Interviewed by Author. 19 April 1993,
Lansing; Michigan.

Brown, Judy. Telephone Interview by Author. 15 February
1993, Lansing, Michigan.

Bush Reginal. Interviewed by Author, 19 August 1993.
Lansing, Michigan.

Canady, Hortense G. Interviewed by Author. 22 February 1993,
Lansing Michigan.

Cory, Marc. Interviewed by Author, 15 April 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Dunnings, Stuart. Interviewed by Author, 18 March 1993,
Lansing, Michigan.

Evans, Eva. Telephone Interview by Author, 21 September
1993, Lansing, Michigan.

Hannula, Ray. Interviewed by Author, 1 June 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Howell, Patricia. Interviewed by Author, 17 May 1993,
Lansing, Michigan.

Jones, Howard. Interviewed by author, 11 May 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Kron, Anne. Interviewed by Author, 7 March 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Marrs, John. Interviewed by Author, 2 June 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Murray, Carol. Interviewed by Author, 25 March, 1993,
Lansing, Michigan.

Richardson, Gilda. Interviewed by Author, Lansing Michigan.
13 April 1993.

Shunk, Max. Interviewed by Author, 8 March 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

Taylor, Debbie. Interviewed by Author, 9 May 1993, Lansing
Michigan.

93

Williams, Charles. letter to the Lansing School Board. 30
May 1972.

Walsh, Tom. Interviewed by Author, 18 May 1993, Lansing,
Michigan.

Webb, William. Interviewed by Author, 15 July 1993, Lansing,
Michigan.

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