Desegregating Denver: Court-Ordered Integration in Public Schools, 1974 to 1984 Riots raged in Boston. Cities such as Montclair, Dayton, and Milwaukee awaited and anticipated their own battles. Mandatory integration through school busing gripped school districts across the United States. Beginning with the Supreme Court's decision in 1974 to mandate the desegregation of de facto segregated schools, r schools racial segregated by means other than the formally legal, de jure dual system prevalent in the South prior to the Civil Rights movement, schools across the nation became engulfed in a debate on equality, Violence erupted in cities such as Boston as tensions mounted over proposed busing plans and racial bigotry surfaced among the white population. One city supposedly accomplished what eluded so many others: the successful integration of public schools void of demobilizing protests. Denver stood out among the cities undergoing racial integration during the 1970s and 1980s, not only because the case which lead to the Supreme Court decision originated in Denver, but also because of the comparative ease with which Denver integrated. Although Denver may not have experienced the extremes exhibited in other integration efforts, Denver still had difficulties integrating. In his article, "Our Selma is, Here,” ‘Tom Romero details the effort to integrate Denver prior to court-ordered mandate in 1974, Describing Denver as a tri-ethnic community, Romero discusses how the addition ofa distinct ethnic minority, Latinos, challenged the traditional dual racial system associated with segregation and integration. Romero's article "analyzes the attempts by Denver's administrators, parents, students, and courts to achieve equality of educationalopportunity among a racially diverse student body."! ‘The problem facing Denver and the Denver School Board was the extent to which “different racial groups in the city had dissimilar vi ‘ns of educational opportunity.’ For Denver's black community, equality meant access to superior, predominately white schools. Advanced curriculum designed to prepare students for college as well as newer and adequate numbers of textbooks made white schools appealing to African American parents and students when compared to the inferior’ schools in the heart of Denver's Five Points Neighborhood." In contrast, Romero explains the Latino or Chicano idea of educational opportunity as the creation of an educational system able to "come to grips with the unique needs and concerns of Mexican American students." These concerns included access to bilingual education and opportunities to explore their own cultural history. The implementation of school busing did nothing to address the concerns of the Mexican American community in Denver. In fact, as Romero shows, the Chicano community reacted in contrast to the traditional role a minority group in the process of integration; Denver's Chicano community wanted to be separate, This paper, while acknowledging the tri-ethnic aspect of Denver, focuses on the actions and reactions of the white majority and serves as a compliment to Romero's detailed analysis of the minority groups involved in Denver's integration process. While Romero argues that Denver is unique in integration due to its multiethnic composition, itis also the actions of the white community that made Denver different. In Boston Against ' Tom I. Romero. "Our Selma is Here: The Political and Legal Struggle for Educational Equality in Denver, Colorado, and Multiracial Conundrums in American Jurisprudence,” Seattle Journal For Social Justice Volume 3, Issue 1 (2004), 75, *Tbid,, 76 2 Thid,, 82 and 81 “Tid, 91Busing, Ronald Formisano also centers his analysis on the white portion of a community undergoing integration changes in its public schoo! system. Focusing intensely on South Boston or Southie and particularly the active surrounding South Boston High, Formisano's work describes the violent and hostile reaction busing for the purpose of desegregation received in “the Little Rock of the North."® Clear from their reaction to the busing decision, "[mJost white residents of Boston, and particularly most white parents of schoolchildren, were overwhelmingly antibusing in some way,"¢ Outraged by the possibility of integration, parents formed the vocal antibusing group, Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) before the orders to integrate even came down.’ Residents of Southie were ready for a fight even before the fight began. Boston Against Busing sets out to show “the persistance of race and class discrimination and the counterproductiveness of some solutions that are imposed on it"® Formisano could have accomplished this by looking at any number of cities and their integration efforts. What makes Boston stand out in the integration discuss, Formisano argues, is the unique characteristics of the white community and how certain elements of this community came together resulting in an explosion of violence and bigotry. Predominantly working-class, white, Irish families in Southie, Formisano argues the socioeconomic status and cultural background of the anti-busing Bostonians contributed to both their attitude toward integration and their reaction to the integration orders. Using an "Irish Catholic tradition, termed ‘collective calculated violence’," as a method of redressing social grievances, violence was not unintentional but a form of protest? Most of * Ronald P. Formisano, Boston Against Busing: Race, Clas, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Caroling Press, 1991), 1 "Tid. 88, "bid, 71 "Ibid, xi Ibid, 111all, Formisano argues that fear drove white Boston's reaction to integration, whether it be the fear of the sexual promiscuity of blacks or the fear of lose of socioeconomic status.2° Looking at Formisano's analysis of Boston and the situation in Denver and seeing how differently, although some similarities exist, the two white populations reacted to integration shows that more than race played a factor in how these groups dealt with the challenge of desegregation. The example of Boston also gives a clearer understanding of why the national media considered Denver an integration success. Only a week after school began under court-ordered integration plans in 1974, the New York Times ran an article titled "Denver Schools Integrate Easily.” While other cities fell into patterns of racial hatred and bigotry, Denver maintained an "unblemished record of racial harmony" even through the difficult process of integrating its public schools? A. month later the Times ran another positive article concerning Denver's desegregation. Unlike the citizens of other cities, Denverites "obeyed court edicts and... [gave] desegregation a chance." A "relatively affluent" city with “one of the highest education levels of any city in the nation," Denver avoided the violent protests that rocked cities such as Boston because it lacked one key ingredient: “a substantial number of lower-class whites."*? Denver's African-American population also was more upwardly mobile compared to other minority communities around the country. These two factors combined to create a white population less threatened by the social advances of black peoples. More secure in their own status, the whites of Denver did not fear the improvement in status of ‘Ibid, 119 and 216. © "Denver Schools Integrate Easily" New York Times. September 9, 1974, 38 ® James P. Sterba, "Denver School Busing Succeeds; Social Mixture Called x Factor" New York Times, October 26, 1974, 34. bid, 34others. The security of status for the white population of Denver did not keep some from opposing integration though. Most still did not approve of busing their children across the city to attend school. Although Denver did not have major outlreaks of “violence or overt displays of racial hatred," tensions still existed.%* The political rifts of the Denver School Board, pro- busing and anti-busing, and their inability to create a lasting desegregation plan exemplified the tensions that surrounded the issue of school integration in Denver. From 1974 to 1984, the Denver School Board proposed numerous plans to solve the problem of segregated schools, but none of these plans accomplished the goals sought through school reform, The minority communities of Denver never received the equal educational opportunities they sought and, in the end, the push to integrate Denver Public Schools resulted in little more than than maintainance of racial isolation. Segregation never ruled as law in Denver, but this fact did not ensure racial integration, Restrictive covenants, although ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court case, Shelley v. Kraemer 1948, had kept the majority of Denver's neighborhoods racially homogencous for the majority of Denver's history. Until the early 1960s, Denver's African- American population had been housed mainly in the Five Points neighborhood. Growing numbers forced expansion of the community beyond the confines of Five Points and into predominately white areas of the city. Colorado Boulevard, a few blocks east of Five Points eastern boundary of Downing Street, once served as the dividing line between white Denver and black Denver. This line blurred as African-Americans began moving into areas east of Colorado, including North Park Hill and Northeast Park Hill, "Tid, 34Established near the turn of the twentieth century, Park Hill originally served as an elite enclave east of the city core; home to successful professionals including doctors, lawyers, engineers, and business executives. The influx of new black residents did not penetrate the exclusive, distinguished southern end of the neighborhood, but instead settled in the newer northern section, developed after the end of World War II. Park Hill touted itselfas a highly sophisticated, successfully integrated neighborhood, but the racial composition of its schools told a different story. The isolation of blacks to the northern end of the neighborhood made it easy to build new facilities or gerrymander the boundaries of older facilities to produce racially segregated student populations. For example, when Barrett Elementary Schoo! opened in 1960, African-Americans made up nearly ninety percent of the student body.15 The chosen location and boundaries doomed Barrett to be a racially segregated school from its creation. Many in the African American portion of the neighborhood felt the School Board had intentionally fostered the separation of whites and blacks in educational facilities. Lead by African American lawyer, Wilfred Keyes, nine families representing the tri- ethnic nature of Denver Public Schools sued the school district over the school board's segregation practices. Creating racially segregated schools and providing "unequal educational opportunity for the students attending them,” the Denver School Board intentionally set attendance boundaries to ensure maximum racial isolation.#® Originally filed in 1969, the case went through a number of stays, injunctions, appeals, and cross- appeals until finally reaching the United States Supreme Court on October 12, 1972. * Keyes 1970 briefs p.6 * Keyes 1970 briefs p.32Eight months after taking the case, the Supreme Court delivered a decision on Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver that affected not only the Denver school district, but had national implications as well. On June 21, 1973, the majority of the Court found in favor of the small group of parents who had claimed the school district had engaged in intentional segregation practices in the Park Hill neighborhood. ‘The Supreme Court agreed and Denver became the first non-southern school district to be found maintaining a dual educational system based on race. Following its ruling the High Court remanded the case back to District Court Judge William Doyle who, in turn, ordered the creation of an integration plan to eliminate illegal segregation. Both the plaintiffand the defendant submitted plans to Judge Doyle and the judge held debates on the future of Denver's desegregation throughout February and March of 1974. As the hearings continued in Judge Doyle's courtroom, concern among white parents grew and their voices grew louder in opposition to the proposal of busing as a solution. Although still unclear how extensive the busing plans would be, the dread over the possibility of students' bus rides lasting an hour or more fostered anti-busing sentiment among parents. Always open to the public, the Denver School Board began to hold its monthly meetings at larger venues to accommodate the increasing number of parents and students coming to voice their opinions on the issue of integration. The school board adopted a rotating location schedule, meeting in high school auditoriums around the district. The board meeting on February 14, 1974, the first since the he. \g5 on proposed integration plans began, ran late into the night as parents, students, and community members vocalized their various concerns. Some, like RL. Bradford, viewed busing for the purpose of integration as legally indefensible. During his time at the microphone, Bradford“commented that busing to integrate by force was in conflict with Public Law 88-352," "concluded that the neighborhood schools were one of the basic rights of humans in the United States through the free choice in selecting a community to live in," "[and] emphasized...that the underlying principle of allocating people to schools by color was racism and that if, in the Brown Case’ in 1954, it was wrong to assign a black child toa school on the basis of race, it was just as wrong now.""7 Nolan Winsett, president of the newly formed Citizens Association for Neighboriiood Schools (CANS), echoed Bradford's sentiment that busing was a sort of corruption of governmental power or violation of the rights of citizens. Winsett stated he had "watched the forced busing issue go along long enough and had seen other cities brutalized by the federal courts. [He] felt most strongly that [his] elected representatives in Congress and in our own State Legislature had abdicated their responsibility to the people and had given the responsibility to the courts."1® Ann Walton also stepped forward to voice her belief that it was an “infringement of someone's civil rights when any mandatory action was taken in this supposedly free society.""? For these and other like-minded citizens, any plan which included busing was unacceptable, While conservative whites considered the School Board's proposed plans a gross overstepping of powers, many blacks felt the plans did not go far enough. Reverend John Morris, pastor at Macedonia Baptist Church, "indicated that the Black Community did not see any hope for fulfillment in the implementation of the law of the land and their aspirations for educational justice in the Board's Plan; rather, a bare-boned, minima " Schoo! Board Meeting Minutes ftom February 14, 1974, Omar Blair Papers, ARL3, Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, The Denver Public Library. 13 Thid,, 15, "Tid. 15attempt to answer a court order."2° Joe E. Roy seconded the Reverend’s sentiments calling the Board's Plan "nothing more than a compilement of pious platitudes consisting of highly theoretical, educational language designed to soothe the minds and hearts of those who already have an inherent advantage but contains very little substance for those who have been educationally deprived almost all their lives [sic].’21 While the School Board's Plan attempted to fix the racial balance of schools, it did nothing to address the problems and concerns raised by the African-American community: the inequality of educational opportunity. By developing a plan based solely on numbers, the Denver School Board had neglected its duty to maximize the benefit for all of its students, Other citizens’ concerns also had a student-based focus, Tom Moe, a white student at Kennedy High School, presented the Board with the results of a survey conducted to “find out the students’ opinion of busing.” The results showed that students were against busing, and explained they opposition with very practical, non-racial reasons. One major reason Moe found for the students’ opposition to busing was the fact "[iJt would hamper Participation by bused students in extra curricular activities."22 By presenting the students point of view, Moe showed the massive, unintentional effects busing plans could have on the lives of bused students. Also voicing concern for the everyday lives of the students being affected by court-ordered integration, Phyllis Prescott summarized the feelings of many of the parents in the room when she asked the School Board to "exercise their options of compliance with the law in the interests of children and not use the children to * Ibid, 19, Thi. 21 * bid, 9.10 further their own individual points of view."23 Citizens such as these hoped the Denver School Board would make the students it enrolled its highest priority as it sorted out the issue of desegregation. Having seen how the issue had been dealt with in Denver's recent history, there was little precedent to find hope in. ‘The Keyes decision and the subsequent order to desegregate was not Denver's first attempt to integrate its schools. The School Board knew of the racial imbalance and educational inequality within its schools years before being ordered to correct them. The Board of Education commissioned a "Special Study Committee on Equality of Educational Opportunity in the Denver Public Schools" in 1962 and its findings presented to the Board in March 1964, The committee reported that Denver schools possessed a "real possibility of unequal educational opportunity because of the existence of clusters of minority racial (Negro) and ethnic (Spanish surnamed) groups within the city... There is abundant authority to the effect that such ‘de facto’ separation in schools may result in educational inequalities."** Recommendations presented by the committee included the review of proposed future school sites and recreation of school boundary lines "to minimize the effects of de facto segregation” and "the adoption of a plan of limited open enrollment."25 Although slow in action, the school board had made a move in the direction of integration. The biggest step thus far the year before the Keyes case was filed as the Denver School Board voted in favor of a resolution to end desegregation in public schools. Resolution 1490, better known as the "Noel Resolution," received approval from the Denver School Board on May 18, 1968. School Board member Rachel Noel, an African- » bid, 16. * A Special Study Committee on Equality of Educational Opportunity in the Denver Public Schools, "Report and Recommendation to the Board of Education School District Number One Denver, Colorado,” 6, * Report & Recommendation to the Board of Education School District Number One, A-6 and A-10TT American woman from Park Hill, introduced the measure at the April board meeting where it created such as stir, "the board voted to table the resolution for one month."6 The delay provided time for proponents of the resolution to rally support of its cause. Pro-integration members of the Park Hill community along with groups such as Speak Out for Integration organized in support of the Noel Resolution. The "homes of uncommitted school board members were picketed" and various "[cJommunity, religious, political, and social leaders were approached to support the resolution."27 Black Educators United, "the association of black school teachers,” showed its commitment and support of the resolution when it announced "its intention to boycott the schools in support of the Resolution.” 28 Not an integration plan itself, the resolution called for the creation of a comprehensive integration plan. After a five-to-two vote in favor of passage of the Noel Resolution, the Denver School Board then spent nearly a year studying alternative integration plans. From these hearings and deliberations came the passage of three new controversial resolutions and the creation of Superintendent Dr. Robert Gilberts’ Plan for desegregation. The new integration plan called for “one-way busing of three thousand black students from inner city elementary, junior high, and high schools to predominantly Anglo schools in Southwest and Southeast Denver."?? In this format, black students alone bore the hardship of added busing time and school changes, but, as complaints about the plan arose, they did not come from the African-American community. Instead, the African-American community saw improved educational opportunities as worth the sacrifice. * Sharon Ruth Brown-Bailey, "Journey Full Circle: A Historical Analysis of Keyes v. School District No. I" PRD diss,, University of Colorado at Denver, 1998), 83, 2 Ibid, 83. 2 Dbid. 83. » Tid, 8412 ‘The Gilberts Plan received harsh criticism even before its implementation. The loudest criticism came from the Chicano community. Ex-prize fighter and Chicano activist, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales made his understanding of educational equality clear when he “pulled out a bullhorn [at the October 1968 Schoo! Board meeting] and then praceeded to read a two-page statement demanding, among other things, that any equality of educational opportunity plan include provisions for bilingual education, community control of schools, and a Chicano-based curriculum,"*° Although victims of the “discrimination and racial inequality" resulting in inferior minority schools, the Chicano community remained “highly skeptical about racial balance and bu: 18S a solution” to the issue of equal educational opportunity.*! While the school district viewed integration as creating a balance of minority and non-minority students within Denver schools, the Chicano community "attempted to achieve integration and equality by forcing the school district to come to grips with the unique needs and concerns of Mexican American students."®? Although outbursts such as Corky Gonzales’ speech at the School Board meeting and various walkouts organized by Chicano student activists garnered attention, "the demands of Chicano students were dismissed as the belligerent actions of a small minority."= For now, the demands of the Chicano community went unrequited. Denver's first attempt to integrate via the Gilberts Plan included a spree of violent incidents to go along with vocal protests. On March 20, 1969, "two were hospitalized, and several others were injured in the violent confrontation between students, activists, and the police.” The altercation occurred as Chicano activists marched on West High School in * Romero, “Our Selma is Here," 73 2 Ibid, 90. Ibid, 91 * Ibid, 93.13 response to the Denver School Boards failure to meet their educational reform demands.* More intimidating than the emotionally inspired outbursts of violence at rallies and protests, "twenty-three Denver Public School buses were destroyed and fifteen were damaged by dynamite” in February of 1970. Judge Doyle's home was bombed later the same year." Neither whites nor Chicano claimed responsibility for the bombings and the perpetrators were never identifies. While these acts resulted in no injuries, the use of violence showcased the extremes to which citizens of Denver went to express thei dissatisfaction with implemented integration plans. The election of an anti-busing majority on the School Board in the election following the enactment of the Gilberts Plan proved a referendum on the previous School Board's integration policies. The voting people of Denver had the chance to fill two seats on the Board in the spring 1969 election. ‘The two winning candidates, James Perrill and Frank Southworth ran on a platform "promising to end the current Board's policy of forced busing and to repeal the integration resolutions if they were elected.” They won ina landslide.*° True to their campaign promises, Perrill and Southworth "spearheaded the rescission of the integration resolutions” when the newly elected board met on June 9, 1969.37 Intended to bring an end to busing solutions for integration, the repeal of the resolution merely started a new chapter in the Denver desegregation story. Ten days later on June 19, as a direct response to the rescission of integration Resolutions 1520, 1524, and 1531, Wilfred Keyes filed suit against the Denver School District. » Tid, 92. ™ hid, 111 ® Ipid., 95. * Bid. 96.14 When busing returned to Denver Public Schools, it did so with the authority ofa federally mandated court order. After two months of hearings and a long deliberation, Judge Doyle reached his decision on which integration plan to approve for the 1974-1975 school year. Dismissing the plans submitted by both the School Board and the Keyes conglomerate as unacceptable, Judge Doyle chose the plan created by the court's own advisor, Dr. John Finger. ‘The Finger Plan set minimum and maximum percentages for the racial composition of schools. Setting a"40 percent minimum percentage and a 70 percent ‘maximum percentage of Anglo students in every elementary school” ensured the end of nearly homogenous student bodies with regards to race.%® In order to achieve these racial percentages, Finger relied on a computerized system of rezoning boundaries and "short" busing of minority students."° "Black students would continue to bear the bulk of the burden of busing for the sake of integration,” just as they had under the Gilberts Plan.*® This fact did not keep anti-busing whites from protesting the Finger Plans implementation. Complicated by its multiethnic composition, the plans to integrate Denver schools had to include improved access and opportunities for African-American students but also accommodate the educational reforms requested by the Chicano community, The Mexican ‘American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) joined the litigation on the Keyes case after the Supreme Court decision in 1973, The purpose of joining at this late stage was to ensure "Mexican American students [had] their own advocate in the case."*! MALDEF ixtaposed Chicano students with blacks and whites," and "created its own integration * Brown-Bailey, "Journey Full Circle," 108. * Tid, 107, bid, 108, * Romero, “Our Selma is Here," 115,15 policy to specifically protect the needs of the Mexican American students."*2 The Cardefias Plan, named for Dr. Jose A. Cardefias, centered on a "commitment to bilingual and multicultural programs at every level of the school system." While most integration plans assumed that contact with white culture would provide relief from the oppression of segregation, the Cardefias Plan and MALDEF as a whole "advocated that the equality interests of the Chicano students would be best served by allowing them to learn about, identify with, and eventually emulate and celebrate their own racial and cultural heroes."** MALDEF did not believe contact with white students was the only way for Chicanos to escape educational inequality, but longed for future generations to find relief from oppression through a deeper education of and connection to their own cultural roots, Because MALDEF's plan of providing a bilingual, bicultural education for Chicano students, required Chicano students to be centrally located and segregated from other students, MALDEF and the Chicano community did not support busing efforts. In fact, they pushed to be exempt from busing integration due to their unique educational needs. Judge Doyle agreed and had John Finger include bilingual programs during the creation of his desegregation plan. The Finger Plan exempt eight elementary schools from racial percentage guidelines and developed a pilot bilingual-bicultural education program at "at three elementary and one junior high and high school."#5 While MALDEF and the Chicano community celebrated their win in countering integration efforts, the party was short lived, * Thid,, 115 and 116. * Tbid,, 116 “ Teid,, 117 © Brown-Bailey, “Journey Full Circle,” 108 and 110,16 Appeals of Judge Doyle's decision overturned the exemption of Chicanos from integration plans and bilingual programs, promised or not, were far from reality. ‘The major difference between Denver's integration efforts prior to the Keyes decision and the efforts after the case was not a change in how Denver citizens felt about integration, but a change in the fact that these new plans carried with them a federal court order, Many still did not care for any form of busing plan, but now the election and maintenance of an anti-busing Board had much less power. Even an anti-busing majority on the Denver School Board could not stop the Finger Plan's implementation and school busing plans from taking hold. The School Board continued to hold public meetings and people continued to voice their opposition to integration plans after Judge Doyle announced his decision for the Finger Plan, Many conservative, white citizens felt the fight against mandated busing was not over and they demanded action from their School Board. Nolan Winsett, speaking before the Board on April 18, 1974, "urged the Board, after reviewing the final degree of Judge Doyle, to appeal his decision." Winsett felt it wrong "to forcibly bus a child because of race... regardless of what one federal court judge said,” and called on the Board to do something to correct this injustice.*® While some like Nolan Winsett asked for a complete appeal, others sought an adjustment of certain aspects of the plan. Michael Whalen voiced his concern that the rezoning of schools would "destroy neighborhood boundaries" and hoped to have some “input into the possible rearrangement of school boundaries." Anti-busing Schoo! Board member James Perrill responded to Whalen's concern by stating "the Board did not have “ School Board Meeting Minutes from April 18, 1974, Omar Blair Papers, ARL3, Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, The Denver Public Libraty, 7.17 any discretion on boundaries; that they were set by the court."*” Mrs, Jerome McHugh also suggested an adjustment to ease acceptance of the new plan. McHugh suggested "that next year's seniors be permitted to finish at their present high schools.” Again, Perrill's response spoke to the impossibility due to court order. Perrill stated "although there was no opposition to the plan, it was bad for the ethnic and racial composition of the schools” meaning that School Board "would have to bring in more sophomores and juniors to get the 56% composition which the judge had ordered to be achieved by September."*® While every citizens’ complaint was unfortunate and the Board empathized with their disgruntled attitudes, there was little to Board could do; they were simply following court orders. Although a convenient scapegoat to avoid blame or responsibility for the integration processes taking place, the District Court's ruling and order to implement the Finger Plan was not taken lightly or quietly by the Denver School Board. The school board appealed the decision of Judge Doyle to the Tenth Circuit Court only to have Judge Doyle's decision not only upheld, but also expanded. Under the new revisions, busing programs expanded and bilingual education programs came to a halt. The Tenth Circuit Court ruled "bilingual- bicultural education was not a substitute for desegregation, and such instruction had to be subordinate to a plan of school desegregation."®? The decision forced Judge Doyle to include the previously exempt Hispanic majority schools in integration according to the Finger Plan. A group of Chicano families attempted to overturn this decision by filing suit against the school district in 1976. In Garcia v. School District No. 1, Denver, Chicano families argued the absence of bilingual education discriminated against Spanish speaking “ibid, 15. * Tid, 14, © Brown-Bailey, "Tourney Full Citele,” 114,18 students because it denied them the opportunity to participate in a language of higher competence. Although the case did not result in a victory for the Chicano plaintiffs, the suit in itself shows the dissatisfaction of Denverites with the remedies for educational inequality. While violent protest never manifested following the integration orders, the fear that violence would erupt did, Cognizant of the violence that had erupted in response to carlier desegregation efforts, as well as aware of the violence protests spawning in other cities in tandem with Denver's integration efforts, Mayor William McNichols called on Denver citizens to maintain a rational outlook on the days leading up to the first days of integrated school. On September 23, 1974, MeNichols released a statement to press urging peacefull cooperation with new integration plans, In this press release, McNichols "callfed] upon all citizens, upon all parents, and upon all students, to obey and follow the law as enunciated by the courts -- and make your protests in a legal way, aboveboard, through any orall judicial or legislative appeals as your see fit [sic Predicting the nostalgia of future generations, McNichols encourage the people of Denver to act lawfully so that "future generations of Denverites will look back at the greatness of Denver and say, "Those people in September, 1974, went through a most traumatic experience in the total desegregation of the public schools, but they performed magnificently as a people to make solid and "so stable the essential foundations of our society! During earlier School Board meetings, some Denverites threatened violence and championed boycotts if the integration orders went through. At the meeting on April 18, Allen Hussey claimed "he was going to get nasty, that somebody was going to get hurt and © Press Released Statement, September 23, 1974, William MeNichols Papers, WHIO1S, Western History Collection, The Denver Public Library.19 blood would be shed, so the Board better appeal the Court's order."5! Nolan Winsett, CANS president, announced that “a majority of the members of CANS [would] not participate in any attempt to racially balance the Denver Public Schools” in September.5? Having already orchestrated a successful school boycott on February 22, CANS suggested a district wide boycott of schools every Friday of October as a sign of solidarity amongst parents against forced busing. Along with protesting mandatory busing, CANS hoped to use the boycotts to “rally support for constitutional amendments against mandatory desegregation” and to “try to cut federal and state aid to the Denver schools” by holding students out of school during the time period when official attendance figures are determined. In response the possible threats and disruptions, Judge Doyle “extended a temporary order prohibiting the Citizens Association for Neighborhood Schools (CANS) from promoting the boycotts" claiming "the court ‘has authority to prevent activities that prevent children from going to school.”* ‘The court order, original handed down on September 27, prohibited CANS from promoting the first of the four scheduled boycotts and had successfully thwarted the boycotts efforts with "upwards of 95 percent of the school districts children" attending class.% Although threats were made and boycotts planned, few incidents hampered the actual carrying out of integration plans, While Denver argued and implemented plans to integrate its public schools, other ‘ities around the country experienced their own, often more turbulent, versions of school desegregation. Stemming from the Keyes decision, northern cities found the racial balance * Schoo! Board Meeting Minutes from April 18, 1974, Omar Blair Papers, ARL3, Blait-Caldwell African American Research Library, The Denver Public Library, 9. 8 Bid. 7 {Ait Branscombe, "School Boycott Aimed at Cutting Federal, Stete Aid,” Denver Post, September 24, 1974 Ei Tom Rees, “Doyle directs CANS to drop other boycotts,” Rocky Mountain News, October 10, 1974, 5, * Thi, 5,20 of their educational institutions under examination. During the 1970s, a number of major northern cities experienced changes to their public schooling systems in the hopes of creating a more racial balanced, educationally equal structure. Cities such as Detroit, Milwaukee, Dayton, and Boston all experimented with their own forms of desegregation, but busing students became a common element in their efforts. Detroit took its first steps toward integration in 1970 when the Detroit school board passed a plan, redrawing regional boundaries, and "redrawing attendance boundaries for twelve of the twenty-two regular high schools across the color line of residential segregation," As a result of these changes, "a few white children would be transferred from white schools to black schools." Outcry from the white citizenry of Detroit resulted in a recall of the plan, but action. encouraged the Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to “test the constitutionality of Northern segregation and the responsiveness of the judicial system."s7 Determined to take their fight before the Supreme Court, the Detroit NAACP was only slowed slightly by the Supreme Court's decision ona similar case, Keyes v. School District No. 1, Denver. When the Detroit case reached the high court it was only to determine the extent to which a desegregation remedy could be enacted. The Court ruled that only violations within the district could be addressed and no cross-district relief could be devised.5 Detroit represented a different demographic break down, far more racially isolated than Denver. When the case originated in 1970, "Detroit's black core had 133 virtually all- black schools containing 133,000 black pupils surrounded by virtually all-white school * Paul R. Dimond, Beyond Busing: Inside the Challenge to Urban Segregation (Aun Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985), 27 * Ibid, 36. "Tid, 110-118,21 districts housing 626,000 pupils, 99.13 percent of whom were white."S? For Detroit meant a lack of options to integrate due to a lack of racial mixture within the city boundaries and the inability to bring in or bus out students to create any sort of racial mixture within the classroom. Integration efforts in Detroit were halted before they ever truly began, Desegregation efforts in Boston began in much the same way as Detroit and Denver. In 1961 Boston's NAACP branch began its campaign to end de facto segregation. Boycotts served as an attention grabbing method; "an estimated four to eight thousand high school students” stayed home from school on June 18, 1961, a NAACP sponsored "Stay Out For Freedom Day.” Although moderately successful, Boston NAACP efforts failed to get national attention which was focused on the civil rights demonstrations taking place around the South." Efforts still continued on the grassroots level in Boston and a new plan of attack on desegregation was formulated: transfer African American students from overcrowded inner city, black schools to the underused white schools in the suburbs, The plan, code named Operation Exodus began in 1966 "[b]using 220 black students," and grew to "busing nearly 2,500 and still had a long waiting list,” by the 1974-1975 school year.st ‘The Afri n American community of Boston had a goal: equality of educational opportunity for their children, even if it meant procuring donated buses and setting up car pools to get the children out to the suburbs for school. Interestingly, "[aJlmost none [of Boston's white citizenry] expressed any objection to sending their children to school with a few blacks," but a small contingent began to emerge that felt it "best to keep Negroes ‘in their own * Ibid, 100. Formisano, Boston Against Busing, 29. © Tid, 38,22 districts and schools’ and that ‘white people have a right to keep Negroes out of their neighborhoods if they want to."6? This group of anti-integration whites continned to grow as the push for desegregation mounted and the future of Boston’ tegration moved into the hands of federal court judge, Wendell Arthur Garrity. On June 21, 1974, Judge Garrity announced that beginning the following school year, Boston Public Schools would be implementing a desegregation plan "requiring the busing of some seventeen to eighteen thousand students.” The decision created a "political and social disaster."*? Anti-busing organizations such as ROAR had been preparing for a fight against the busing decision for months before Garrity announced his decision. Trouble was expected when the new school year began, but most underestimated the extent and violence. "Fights, riots, and protests” frequently erupted throughout the year and injury and damage reports quickly became part of the integration discussion. In less than a month of school the Boston community saw "140 arrests, 69 treatable in juries, countless incidents of harassment, and an enormous commitment of police to try to keep the peace” asa result of the busing mandate. With incidents such as the "shooting and paralyzing of a black football player in Charlestown, [and] the stabbing of a white East Boston student,” fear of violence and the potentially lethal results of racial hatred increased.®5 Fear and dysfunction of the Boston Public School system lead many to attempt to find alternatives. Those who could afford it sent their children to the well-established parochial school system, but high tuition kept many of South Boston's working class families out of private schools. Those with the means left the city entirely, Hyde Park, a ® id, 39 © Ibid. 70, “Ibid, 75. © Thid., 80 and 212.23 semi-suburban neighborhood at the southern end of Boston, saw a decrease of approximately 6000 white residents between 1970 and 1980. Whether through private schools or white flight from the city, whites Bostonians were fleeing the Boston Public School system. Like Boston, Denver also experienced falling percentages of Anglo students enrolled in its district following initial execution of desegregation plans. The decreasing number of white students made it increasingly difficult for schools to fulfill the mandated racial percentages set forth by the Finger Plan. In response to the growing controversy over racial percentages (both doubt over the possibility to now meet integration requirements and complaints that certain schools had never met the required percentages) District Court Judge Richard Matsch, who had taken over supervision of the Keyes case from Judge Doyle in 1976, ordered an investigation into the districts efforts to desegregate and the submission of new plans by for comprehensive desegregation by May 1, 1979. The resulting plans created by the Denver School Board exemplified the deep divide the issue of busing had created. The Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by pro-busing School Board member Kay Schomp, presented its plan for desegregation on June 5, 1981. The Ad Hoc Plan focused on “reducing transportation, increasing neighborhood schools, and eliminating satellites."67 The plan at first seemed also to accommodate the goals of anti-busing advocates (especially in regards to the increase in neighborhood schools). Closer examination showed the plan reduced the distance bused students travelled through the climination of satellites but increased the number of students in need of busing services © Toid., 88-90 and 130. ©’ Denver Public Schools Board of Education Administrative Staff, "Ad Hoc Committee Report on a Unitary School System Plan"24 due to the increased size of school attendance areas. The vast increase in the number of “bused” students proved to difficult for anti-busing advocates to accept. In contrast to the Ad Hoc Plan's increased busing, the anti-busing faction created a plan that ended busing completely. The anti-busing faction of the School Board submitted its own plan to Judge Matsch on December 11, 1981. The Total Access Plan eliminated all residential boundaries [and] assignments based upon ethnicity."“® Instead of assigning students to schoo! {alll schools in the District are available for selection by parents and pupils."® The Plan also created a number of new magnet schools and magnet center programs at various schools around the district in order to “meet the needs of pupils in regard to their learning characteristics, interests, and life goals." The Plan neglected any mention of desegregation or assurances of integrated student bodies. The Plan also neglected to maintain the concept of neighborhood schools, which was the basis for the anti-busing argument from the beginning of desegregation planning. Judge Matsch rejected the Total Access Plan as "unacceptable for implementation in the fall of 1982 because it was incomplete, insufficient, and unrelated to the realities of the continuing effects of past segregative policies."7! ‘Three years after he had ordered new desegregation plans submitted, Judge Matsch finally received a plan he could accept, grudgingly. Reverting back to the alternative plan created the previous fall, the Board patched together a new plan acceptable to the majority of its members. The Board submitted its Consensus Plan on May 12, 1982. Judge Matsch, even less enthused by the new plan than the Board itself, considered the consensus nothing Denver Public Schools Board of Education, "Summary of the Total Access Plan" © Deaver Public Schools Board of Education, "Summary of the Total Access Plan” ® Denver Public Schools Board of Education, "Summary of the Total Access Plan” ” Brown-Bailey, "Journey Full Circle," 129.25 more than “a political compromise patched together by a school board whose majority abhorred busing”? The Consensus Plan reduced the number of children being bused by nearly twenty percent (removing approximately 2600 pupils from the 14,500 bused the previous school) but failed to create the long-term integration solution Judge Matsch had asked the plan to address.’ After staling and producing plans that would obviously be rejected, the Board put forth a plan that could only at best be described as half-hearted. In 1983, the Denver School Board decided to pursue a new approach to desegregation: they decided to push for removal from court jurisdiction. No longer waiting to be acted upon through court declarations, the school board (more specifically the new School Board president) went on the offensive, attempting to have the school district declared unitary and thus no longer in need of desegregation measures. Naomi Bradford, now the School Board President, had been advocating the unitary nature of the Denver School District since court-ordered desegregation began in 1974. At the Schoo! Board meeting held on May 9, 1974, Bradford stated she “was of the opinion that the Denver Public Schools were already integrated, that every school received the same amount of money per child and that it some areas of Denver were predominantly white or black it was because of choice of residence and not the result of a deliberate act by anyone.’"* Now ina position of power and influence on the School Board, Bradford imposed her agenda on the Board and the anti-busing majority became willing followers. " Ybid. 131, James J. Fishman, “Endless Journey: Integration and the Provision of Equal Fducational Opportunity in Denver's Publie Schools: A Study of Keyes v. Schoo! Distries No, 1 (1989) Pace Law Faculty Publications, Paper 111. p. 656 hp! /digitalcommons.pace.edlawfaculty/111 School Board Meeting Minutes from May 9, 1974, Omar Blair Papers, ARI, Blair-Caldwell Aftican American esearch Library, The Denver Public Library. 6.26 When the School Board petitioned for removal from court jurisdiction and an end to desegregation measures, ten years had passed since Denver had been ruled segregated and little had changed. As the various plans proved unsuccessful in “eliminating the achievement gap, Anglo and middle class black families continued to exit the city, and the quality of education was being questioned in all segments of the community.’’5 Integration efforts intended to bring about racial balance in public schools in reality further segregated urban schools, encouraging many white families to move to the suburbs. As early as 1975, the formation of a “white noose” around the urban core became a visible sign of the whites “continuing movement to the suburbs,” 2 “haven for those who wish[ed] to avoid integration.”6 Like in Boston, an alternative to leaving the city was the choice of private schooling. Even before busing began in Denver, anti-busing parent groups put together plans to establish an alternative to public school. In March 1974, Marvin Segal, a white resident of Denver and spokesman for the group planning private school alternative, claimed that "250 teachers from Denver and Boulder have been interviewed, and arrangements have been made to use certain churches and synagogues as school buildings.” Segal and other advocates of the construction of a new private school envisioned a high demand following Judge Doyle's announcement of a busing plan claiming, “thousands of parents [will] seek alternative education for their children if Doyle's decision calls for extensive busing and Denver's private schools are already filled."”? * Brown-Bailey, “Journey Pull Circle," 138. "Art Branscombe, “Integration Blamed for “White Noose’,” Demer Post, May 25, 1995, 1 Kathy Gosliner, "Private School System Planned in Busing Fight," Rocky Mountain News, March 17, 1974, 5 and 2Although this new private school accommodating thousands of students was never built, many parents did choose to send their children to private schools after the busing decision. Carol Pinson, a white, anti-busing proponent and mother of two, chose to send her daughters to private school after losing her battle against court-ordered desegregation. In protest against the orders which would have sent her daughters to a partner school in the afternoons, Pinson "kept [the girls] in the same school all day, sitting with them in the back of classrooms for the afternoons."7® Numerous other parents also chose private schooling over the court-ordered integrated public system as "[e]nrollments in Denver- atea parochial and private schools... jumped noticeably for a year or two after busing began in Denver.” Although enrollments declined slightly in the late 1970s due mostly to "soaring tuition costs," the draw of private schools still existed.”? An added perk of choosing to send their children to private schools rather than leave the city was that anti-busing sentiment remained in the voting population of Denver. The continuation of a strong anti-busing voting block even as the white student body population declined in Denver Public Schools is evidenced in the maintenance of an anti-busing majority on the school board. By the start of the 1980s, enrollment at non-public schools again began to increase. Headmasters and principals of area private schools sighted "dissatisfaction on the part of many with the area's public schools" as the reasoning for the increased enrollment, especially in Catholic schools where “over 1,500 of the system's pupils [were] non- Catholics."®° At the same time, public school enrollments continued to decrease; from 1971 to 1981 the total enrollment of Denver Public Schools showed a "decline of 30,000 "Busing Foe's Children in Private School,” Rocky Mouniain News, September 2, 1976, 8. » are Branscombe, "Costs Slash Private-School Enrollments," Denver Post, November 14, 1976, 1 ' Harold Jolinson, "Private Schools Grow as DPS Enrollments Fall," Rocky Mountain Business Journal, September 2, 1981, 12.28 [students]."*! With ever-increasing white flight from Denver Public Schools, the racial percentages mandated by integration plans moved further and further away from reality. ‘The declining numbers of white students made the goal of racial balance and integration all but impossible, Barrett Elementary, the school that's construction had riled the African-American population of Park Hill in 1960, had achieved miniscule progress toward integration. With a student body more than ninety-five percent black in 1968, Barrett had “integrated” to an eighty percent black student body by 1985.*? In a national study conducted by the University of Chicago in 1987, "almost all states, although in varying degrees" showed "a trend toward greater segregation.” In the case of Colorado, “there had been almost no decline (1.8%) in integration in Colorado since 1970" and “little change in black segregation since 1971." Even with these dismal statistics proving lack of integration, national media continued to taut Denver as a success story; the national study proclaimed Colorado schools as "generally racially integrated, primarily because of court- ordered desegregation in Denver Public Schools" even with the data in front of them showing little integration actual took place.* As for the original grievances aired by minority communities, most ended up forgotten in the quest for racial balance. The achievement gap still existed between Anglo and minority students. The Rocky Mountain News reported in 1986 that “half of Denver's black high school seniors scored in the bottom third nationwide in reading comprehension, while half of Denver's Anglo seniors scored in the top third.”®* African-American citizens of * Tbid, 1 © Janet Bingham, “Segregation persisting at school where fight for integrat 1B, © Amanda Covarrubias, "State Integration Success Laid to Court Order," Rocky Mountain News, July 28, 1987, 10. * Ann Camahan and Robert Jackson, “Fewer city schools meeting guidelines for infogration,” Rocky Mountain News, January 15, 1989, 7. n began,” Denver Post, April 14, 1985,Denver were still not receiving the quality education and the equality of educational opportunity they demanded and were legislatively assured, but the School Board sought to end integration practices. After ten years of integration orders and various policies created to satisfy those orders, Denver Public Schools remained racially segregated. Despite the efforts of minority groups to obtain equal educational opportunities, Denver Public Schools failed to accommodate their educational needs and minority students continued to lag academically. Although Denver may have seemed successful on the national level when compared to cities such as Boston, these two major failures show that Denver was nota susscessful integration story.