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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Manley believed Central High School should be a a boys club after school hours because the school had two gyms, a swimming pool, a cafeteria, and shops. He noted it could be a complete community center and said there were 40 other schools in Flint that could be used.
The Socialist Party had expressed this same view but it was opposed by Mott because he opposed the concept of the Socialist Party managing educational systems. He relished the concept of a school-based educational system of his chosing.
The initial partnering was for martin, Lowell, McKinley, Zimmerman and Homedale Schools. The Mott Foundation was to pay for opening the schools for after hour and weekend use in return for the a School Board commitment to provide the space, heat, light and janitorial services. Mott threw a dinner party for the entire Flint Board of Education and secured a commitment to open five public schools-all in segregated white neighborhoods- for community recreation. The program was designed to meet the needs of each neighborhoods special needs. |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:41 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Sit down strike generated a harsh reaction in Mott. In an interview with journalist Studs Terkel, Mott advocated the belief the strikers should have been shot, and even killed, because they refused to leave the factories. Mott was said to believe the CIO and UAW were proto-socialist threats to private proerty and the rule of law. Mott and Manley hoped the concepts of community recreation, company sponsored housing and other forms of welfare capitalism could overcome the forces of industrial unionism. Mott's philanthrophy was one part charity and one part political counterattack.(page 107 - 108)
Mott and Manley came to realize that recreation alone could not solve the social ills of Flint expanded their vision to community education. The Mott recreation program had expanded into 22 schools. Mott dramatically increased funding and Manley was able to hire "visiting teachers" who investigated the living conditions of Flint children
Mott as a republican was upset at the poverty and living conditions found as well as an increasing turning of the population to democratic ideals. Mott turned his attention during World war II towards the Board of education and away from the UA controlled city commission.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:59 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Detroit Race Riot of 1943 generated a fear that similar events could occur in Floral Park, St. John or in the growing ghetto in Flint's North End. After the end of World war II the Mott Foundation chose the predominantly black Fairview Elementary School to implement a "school centered" community for self-help, recreation and community betterment.
Two years after the epic race riot the foundation opened the Flint Interracial Community center, "a facilitty designed to work toward the improvement of better living, working and playing conditions... between the races, in the fields of recreation, social, moral, and civic affairs." (page 112)
It was located near fairview School in the St John area which was becoming increasingly segregated and offered only limited social programming such as music, boxing and self-improvement programs. It only lasted five years and served primarily male black and Mexican residents from the neighborhoos around the center.
In 1951 the Center was closed and moved to the St John Street Community Center. The minutes of the mott foundation Program Coordinating Committe explained the decision:
"It [Flint Interacial Community Center] was founded at a time when rcial tension in Flint had reached the riot stage. Today, nearly five years after its program began, Flint is enjoying inter-racial and inter-cultural harmony seldon realized by an industrial community of wide racial diversity."
Thus the Mott Foundation abandoned its short and limited experiment with integration.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:29 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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I grew up on West Dartmouth in the late 40's & through the 50's. At that time, the "boundary line" for blacks was Saginaw St. In the late 50's, that shifted to Detroit St. (ML King now). About 1960, 5 houses East of us, a family moved out in the middle of the night & a black family moved in.
Some areas may still be segregated, but it's not as blatant as it was back in the day. |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:19 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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St John Street was home to nearly half of Flint's black population, but remained an economically diverse community. Because of the proximity to the Buick foundry, the area was seriously polluted with soot from the factory. Residents of this area suffered disproportionately from disease, crime and poverty.
According to Highsmith, the 1947 Fairview School, located in the St John area was a Mott Foundation experiment in community improvement in a segregated area. In 1947 the school had 393 students, of which 92 percent were black.
The Mott foundation annual report for 1947-48 described the social conditions of Fairview students :
'In the Fairview District, the serious minded parents who want better things for their children find a continuous struggle to combat destructive urges. Children whose parents have long since bowed to prevailing conditions come to school in a poor state of nutrition and health, with serious behavior problems and little hope for the future."
Highsmith states Mott and manley were still concerned with potential race riots and civil disturbances, so they designed Fairview's strategy as a vehicle by which they could "lesson frustration and aggression' among the black population in this neighborhood. "More generally, though, the the foundation's strategy in Fairview and in other segregated schools was to combat inequality by raising the living standards and intellectual capacities of a few select blacks." (page 114) |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 1:50 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Manley is quoted as saying, "It doesn't mean that the races have to date or inter-marry... [but] we should put the Negro on our middle class level of thinking. We have to take the good negr and bring him along to our middle class." (from the manley papers in the Scharchburg Archives-minutes Mott Foundation Advisory Council meeting of september 27, 1963)
The foundation performed extensive studies of the area, purchased furniture and enhaced the training aids and curriculum of Fairview. The foundation also implemented health services, as well as subsidized medical exams, free breakfast programs for the poorest students. They provided an extended day program to aid working parents. Poor mothers were recruitedfor classes on adult homemaking.
Although the project claimed to be agreat success, the foundation actually released little data to support this claim.The school became a showcase to promote the success of community education. |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:03 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Highsmith details a number of causes for Flint schools inability to remain fiscally solvent. (page 117) The schools were in a deep debt crisis by the late 1940's. There were no new schools constructed between 1929 and 1950.
Mott spearheaded a school bond campaign in 1950. On June 1, 1950, Mott announced a $1 million donation towards the construction of a four year college in Flint, but only if residents approved a millage to build four new elementary schools, additions for three additional facilities, a new junior college, a new public library and a new school administration building. Highsmith describes an intensive citywide campoaign that approved a $7 million bond issue by a four-to-one margin. This was the first school millage in Flint's history. (page 118)
Four additional millages passed in the next dozen year, bringing new buildings and improvementsnfirst to the segregated white neighborhoods and later to the mostly black schools near the inner core of the city.
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 2:19 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Flint constructed eight new elementary schools during the 1950's and only one, Stewart School, had black students. Opening in 1955, Stewart had an an 83 percent black enrollment. The other seven schools were all located in segregated white neighborhoods and had a total enrollment of over five thousand students and none were black. All of the white schools were developed as community school centers.
The first school constructed with the 1950 millage was Freeman School, located in the Farnumwood neighborhood, east of the city's Fisher Body 1 plant and close to the southern border of Burton Township. Freeman school was the archtype of future community schools, built with a ranch style as compared to the earlier two and three story schools. Built on five acres, Freeman was designed to accomadate community activities.
The wide variety of recreational activities served as an introduction to adult education classes. By the 1960's the adult education program offfered over 1200 classes in 54 community school centers in the city. |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:52 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The Manley Papers from the Scharchburg Archives reveal that Manley anh his supporters of the community school program "loathed liberal and leftist leaders such as walter P. Reuther and martin Luther King Jr., condemning them as 'unscrupulous agitators' whose struggle for social equity could only be satisfied by 'dragging down everyone to their level of misery'" (page 130)
The Mott Foundation demonstrated great opposition to welfare and the tenants of the new deal.
The rapid growth of flint's black population in the 1940s and 1950s because of the migration of black agricultural workers from the south put a strain on the rigid color lines and segregationist attitudes in the schools, workplaces and neighborhoods. (page 131)
"Just as they had during the Depression, frank manley and charles Stewart mott would continue to play an instrumental role in maintaining educational Jim Crow during the postwar era." (page 132) |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:06 pm |
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Adam
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
Flint constructed eight new elementary schools during the 1950's and only one, Stewart School, had black students. Opening in 1955, Stewart had an an 83 percent black enrollment. The other seven schools were all located in segregated white neighborhoods and had a total enrollment of over five thousand students and none were black. All of the white schools were developed as community school centers.
I'm guessing there were a few black students in the other white schools? |
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Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:29 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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quote:
Adam schreef:
quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
Flint constructed eight new elementary schools during the 1950's and only one, Stewart School, had black students. Opening in 1955, Stewart had an an 83 percent black enrollment. The other seven schools were all located in segregated white neighborhoods and had a total enrollment of over five thousand students and
none were black
. All of the white schools were developed as community school centers.
I'm guessing there were a few black students in the other white schools?
NO THE OTHER SCHOOLS HAD NO BLACK STUDENTS BECAUSE OF GERRYMANDERING SCHOOL BOUNDARIES AND JIM CROW! |
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 7:21 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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In Chapter 3 Highsmith explores the public policies and racial segregation found in Flint prior to World War II that made Flint the third most segregated city in the US by the end of the 30's.
Highsmith also examines how different entities played roles in creating what dr Albert Wheeler, president of the MIchigan conferences of the NAACP, called "Pigment Formation".
(Dr Albert wheeler, "The Negro Community and City Hall", january 16, 1967, Edgar B. Holt papers, box 9, folder 58, GHCC.)
Highsmith explores the creation of the HOLC and the FHA andhow the federal government as well as participants in the private housing industry "formalized and effectively codified the cultural prejudices and court-sanctioned housing covenants that shaped the residential housing market." (page 133)
The federal government implemented policies that favored development in suburban areas and displayed an implicit anti-urban bias. Despite the FHA preference to insure mortgages in the suburbs, local forces helped shape the way these policies were implemented, the pace of the suburban development and the shape of grown in the urban area.
According to Highsmith, the federal government underestimated the role of lenders, HOLC surveyors, and FHA loan underwriters who "initially favored all-white urban neighborhoods over the poorly serviced, predominately jerrybuilt suburbs in Genesee County." In the 1940's and 1950's the officials in the suburbs were forced to develop new services and more modern political infrastructures before they could receive federal mortgage insurance services. So as the suburbs pushed to create a more urban presence, the all white neighborhoods in Flint received new housing developments and thousands in new home mortgages. (Page 134)
As the areas blacks were allowed to live in became increasingly more segregated and overcrowded, ghettoes were developed. On Page 135, Highsmith discusses how the racial policies of the Mott Foundation that helped maintain Jim Crow in the Flint Schools also influenced the broader public policies. He shows how Mott foundation officials and members of the Flint Board of Education shped policies, gerrymandered school boundaries, built most new schools in segregated neighborhoods all in an attempt to increase property values and maintain a color line.
Because schools were the heart of community education, the schools became more racially segregated. Highsmith states the "leaders of the Mott initiative always operated within a segregationist racial paradigm." The belief was that integration led to declining property values and weakened community ties. |
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:12 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Initially FHA officials disapproved the poorly developed suburban areas within Genesee County, so they pushed for better roads, cleaner water sources, modern sewer systems along with restrictive building and zoning codes. When the housing boom after World war II began there was little infrastructure. Only Flint and sections of Mt Morris and Burton Townships had water and sewer systems.
The Flint Journal interviewed a local John W. Davis, who confirmed that mortgages were linked to sewer lines. (Elimination of Slum districts Awaits More Sewer Lines, January 5, 1947) so while FHA favored suburban development, they witheld mortgage insurance from from communities that lacked modern physical and governmental nfrastructures.
Flint and suburban officials "rushed to dig wells, lay sewer lines, implement zoning codes and lure private housing investors." (page 137) Thus in the early post war years, the FHA focused on development in the segregated white neighborhoods in the central city and the most urbanized suburbs.
The mortgage insurance policies of FHA and the 1944 GI Bill revived home building in Flint. Only 13 permits for new housing were issued in 1933, but by 1940 that number had increased to 629. During the late 1940s nearly a thousand homes per year were being built and home ownership in Flint was nearly 80 percent. Most of these homeowners were for white homeowners in segregated and restricted neighborhoods. (page 138) Previously redlined areas acquired municipal services and were part of the postwar construction boom. |
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:38 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
Adam schreef:
quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
Flint constructed eight new elementary schools during the 1950's and only one, Stewart School, had black students. Opening in 1955, Stewart had an an 83 percent black enrollment. The other seven schools were all located in segregated white neighborhoods and had a total enrollment of over five thousand students and none were black. All of the white schools were developed as community school centers.
I'm guessing there were a few black students in the other white schools?
In the mid 50's, Northern & Central highs had black & White students, as did Emerson & Whittier junior highs. Garfield elementary, at least, also had black & white students.
Also, the original plat drawings for the Metawaneenee Hills neighborhood had "No Negroes or Jews, servants to use back doors only" on the drawings. I've seen the plats.
Last edited by Dave Starr on Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:35 am; edited 1 time in total |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:23 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Dave
Highsmith addresssed the new elementary schools built in the 1950s. When was Garfield built? Garfield is in the style of the older schools and the new schools were built more ranch style. Were there any other high schools and middle schools in Flint then?
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:32 am |
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