The Complex Price of Integration by Calvin Eaton | 29 Days of Little Known Facts About (Black) American History (XXII)

A 540Monthly Membership ensures that 540WMain is able to create and curate educational content and lifestyle lifestyle programming informed by social justice and anti-racism strategies. If you love 540WMain consider becoming a 540Monthly Member today. Help 540WMain reach its goal of 100 monthly members. Click here

The Complex Price of Integration

The effects of local racist policy, redlining, and segregation and the lasting impact on Rochester City School District for me is deeply as an alum of the Urban Suburban Program. The Urban Suburban is “The first and oldest voluntary desegregation program in the United States” According to the Urban Suburban website the program was founded:

“To voluntarily decrease racial isolation,concentrate poverty and enhance opportunities for students in the Rochester City School District and in the suburban districts of the Greater Rochester Area”

I was a student of Virgil I. Grissom School #7 from 1-5 grade and the summer going into my 6th grade year my parents surprised me with the news that they made the decision to enroll me in Brockport Central Schools. This news shattered me. For them, it was the only feasible option for me to receive a quality middle and high school education.
This move from a culturally diverse school with peers that I knew, that talked like me, and I had developed bonds with for years to a mostly white school in a town that I knew nothing about was a culture shock to say the least. I eventually made new friends and “thrived” in my new mostly white environment. However the enormous sacrifice emotionally, mentally, and physically that it took- waking up at 4:45 AM, spending long bus rides commuting to and from the town, never being able to participate fully and wholly in my school because “it was just too far” is not lost on me. The physical and mental toll that racist policy has had and continues to have on black people and other people of color truly hit me in a way last night that it never has before.

Isn’t it ironic

Returning to my past, speaking about the same inequity that changed the course of my life. Speaking to a town and college that is reeling in continued segregation and inequity while the Rochester City School Districted continues to struggle and be more segregated now than it has ever been. 

 *This essay was originally published on Facebook 

About 29 Days of Little Known Facts About (Black) American History

29 Days of Little Known Facts About (Black) American History is an annual blog campaign curated by 540WMain that has a mission to promote and share little known facts about Black Americans everyday throughout the month of February. Now in its 3rd year the campaign highlights the life and work of past and present day Black Americans that are overlooked or underrepresented in our conversations about American history.

540WMain will celebrate its 4 year anniversary with a party and extravaganza on Saturday June 20, 2020. In just four years the organization has become a pillar in the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood and a convener and curator of important and vital community conversations, classes, and programs. Your financial support helps us scale up this work in 2020 and beyond with a year long fundraising goal of $40,000