The Resegregation of America

 

The consequences of creeping racial resegregation constitute nothing less than a national crisis.

By Christopher Petrella

On Sept. 23, 1957, thousands of segregationists blocked nine young black students from enrolling in Little Rock Central High School, an all-white institution in the Arkansas capital. Gov. Orval Faubus ignited a nationwide crisis when he defied the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 decision on desegregation, Brown v. Board of Education, and deployed the Arkansas National Guard to bar the students. Two days later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered U.S. Army units to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.

This fall marked the 60th anniversary of this pivotal moment in the history of America’s racial struggle. With the political landscape seemingly as divided as it has ever been, this moment provides an opportunity to examine the depth and contours of segregation in the nation today. Though clear advances have been made since the civil rights movement, the enactment of increasingly conservative social policies over the last half century reveals how tenuous such progress turned out to be.

The consequences of creeping racial resegregation should constitute nothing less than a national crisis.

U.S. cities have grown more segregated over the past 40 years, and persistent and intensifying racial disparities between white communities and people of color have emerged. This systematic resegregation has grave implications for access to health care services, education and accumulation of wealth. 

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Source: NBC News