Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Volume 42) (American Crossroads): Delmont, Matthew F.: 9780520284258: Amazon.com: Books

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Matthew F. Delmont

Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation (Volume 42) (American Crossroads) Paperback – Illustrated, March 1, 2016

by Matthew F. Delmont (Author)

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Part of: American Crossroads (48 books)

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In the decades after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, busing to achieve school desegregation became one of the nation’s most controversial civil rights issues. Why Busing Failed is the first book to examine the pitched battles over busing on a national scale, focusing on cities such as Boston, Chicago, New York, and Pontiac, Michigan. This groundbreaking book shows how school officials, politicians, the courts, and the media gave precedence to the desires of white parents who opposed school desegregation over the civil rights of black students.

This broad and incisive history of busing features a cast of characters that includes national political figures such as then-president Richard Nixon, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, and antibusing advocate Louise Day Hicks, as well as some lesser-known activists on both sides of the issue—Boston civil rights leaders Ruth Batson and Ellen Jackson, who opposed segregated schools, and Pontiac housewife and antibusing activist Irene McCabe, black conservative Clay Smothers, and Florida governor Claude Kirk, all supporters of school segregation. Why Busing Failed shows how antibusing parents and politicians ultimately succeeded in preventing full public school desegregation.

Part of series

American Crossroads
Print length

304 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of California Press
Publication date

March 1, 2016
Dimensions

6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

0520284259
ISBN-13

978-0520284258
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"By looking at the antibusing uprisings that were presented in mainstream media, this recommended narrative presents civil rights through the lens of media studies and offers an entirely new way of seeing how recent history was written." ― Library Journal Published On: 2016-03-15

"Meticulous and insightful. . . . Delmont’s critique is tough but fair." ― The Boston Globe Published On: 2016-03-31

"Why Busing Failed is an ambitious and well-researched account of an important aspect of the struggle for racial and educational equality in the United States." ― Pacific Historical Review Published On: 2018-07-11

From the Inside Flap

"With Why Busing Failed Matthew Delmont dispels the conventional wisdom on segregation and its convenient narrative of Southern demagogues and Northern heroes. In these pages is a thoroughly chronicled, frustrating history that establishes segregation as a national system and demonstrates its tragic impact upon American education today. This book should be required reading."&;Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress

"In this important work, Matthew Delmont takes the biggest scapegoat for our failure to integrate our schools, and then systematically dismantles the story we thought we knew. Why Busing Failed dispels the all-too-convenient narrative about the disaster of busing as a tool for integration and instead shows that, as black activists noted decades ago, the problem was never the bus, it was us. Carefully researched and compellingly written, Why Busing Failed is an indictment of both politicians and mainstream news organizations that aided and abetted small numbers of white parents in shifting the national narrative of integration from a constitutional and moral imperative to an impossible inconvenience."&;Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine

"Delmont tells an eye-opening story of the struggle for school desegregation outside the South in the wake of the civil rights movement. The Southern campaign received at least moderately positive media coverage. But as Delmont reveals in this deeply researched and engagingly written history, the situation was very different in places like New York, Chicago, Pontiac, Michigan, and&;most famously&;Boston. Delmont shows how Northern anti-segregation activists were able to mobilize the 'busing' issue, along with the media strategies of the Southern civil rights movement, to generate sympathetic media treatment. This book provides a much-needed corrective to the enduring assumption that the American mass media were cheerleaders in the fight for racial equality in the 1960s and 70s."&;Aniko Bodroghkozy, author of Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement

"Matthew Delmont's brilliant study of 'busing' upends much of what we think we know about the media and the civil rights movement. If you want to understand where we are today in this country--and why school segregation is so ubiquitous and so accepted&;read this book.  'Busing' didn't fail; our resolve to desegregate schools did. This may be the most important book you read this year."&; Jeanne Theoharis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College and author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

From the Back Cover

"With Why Busing Failed Matthew Delmont dispels the conventional wisdom on segregation and its convenient narrative of Southern demagogues and Northern heroes. In these pages is a thoroughly chronicled, frustrating history that establishes segregation as a national system and demonstrates its tragic impact upon American education today. This book should be required reading."—Jelani Cobb, author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress

"In this important work, Matthew Delmont takes the biggest scapegoat for our failure to integrate our schools, and then systematically dismantles the story we thought we knew. Why Busing Failed dispels the all-too-convenient narrative about the disaster of busing as a tool for integration and instead shows that, as black activists noted decades ago, the problem was never the bus, it was us. Carefully researched and compellingly written, Why Busing Failed is an indictment of both politicians and mainstream news organizations that aided and abetted small numbers of white parents in shifting the national narrative of integration from a constitutional and moral imperative to an impossible inconvenience."—Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine

"Delmont tells an eye-opening story of the struggle for school desegregation outside the South in the wake of the civil rights movement. The Southern campaign received at least moderately positive media coverage. But as Delmont reveals in this deeply researched and engagingly written history, the situation was very different in places like New York, Chicago, Pontiac, Michigan, and—most famously—Boston. Delmont shows how Northern anti-segregation activists were able to mobilize the 'busing' issue, along with the media strategies of the Southern civil rights movement, to generate sympathetic media treatment. This book provides a much-needed corrective to the enduring assumption that the American mass media were cheerleaders in the fight for racial equality in the 1960s and 70s."—Aniko Bodroghkozy, author of Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement

"Matthew Delmont's brilliant study of 'busing' upends much of what we think we know about the media and the civil rights movement. If you want to understand where we are today in this country--and why school segregation is so ubiquitous and so accepted—read this book. 'Busing' didn't fail; our resolve to desegregate schools did. This may be the most important book you read this year."— Jeanne Theoharis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College and author of The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

About the Author

Matthew F.Delmont is Professor of History at Arizona State University and author of The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; First edition (March 1, 2016)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520284259
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520284258
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #396,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #546 in Black & African American History (Books)
- #895 in Education Administration (Books)

Customer Reviews:
16 ratings

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Matthew F. Delmont

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Matthew F. Delmont is the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of History at Dartmouth College. A Guggenheim Fellow and expert on African American history and the history of civil rights, he is the author of Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad (Viking, 2022), as well four previous books: Black Quotidian, Why Busing Failed, Making Roots, and The Nicest Kids in Town. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and several academic journals, and on NPR. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Delmont earned his BA from Harvard University and his MA and PhD from Brown University. To learn more about the author, please visit: http://mattdelmont.com

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Top reviews from the United States

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A great contribution, but what we all really need is charismatic leadership again. Where is another Lyndon when we all need him?

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Aside from the comments of the editorial reviews listed, I believe this book is more properly seen as an indictment of the majority of Americans who are still believers in good talk but little action. I was fairly active in the Palo Alto area during the run-up to a court ordered busing applying to much of what is now known as Silicon Valley. Talk about kicking ad screaming. Most people I encountered then, as now, see a need for more successful integration to finally drag the whole misleading and mythical concept of "race" into the bright light of reason. While the average (and perhaps well-educated) person, at least in Silicon Valley, professes the need for "progress" in dealing with the detritus of a failing educational system, they certainly don't want to affect their child's shot at Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, So in sum, instead of putting the onus on the "media", geographic concerns, and our weak political leadership, why not concentrate on Joe the Plumber, Bill the highly paid and egocentric engineer, on Delores the steady climber to higher places in the world of work, and Helen the no longer average housewife. I do agree that "busing" is just code for "race". The author makes good use of the statistics on the number of students bussed anyway. Not a fan of Bill Clinton since he and the successive Presidents in our country, failed miserably to even chat about these issues, but he got one thing correctly when he coined the simple phrase for another issue "It's the RIGHT thing to do". Maybe the few who actually buy this book can engage the youth of this country to this worthy cause and forget, for the moment, about the best way to make a lot of money and retire early. We dinosaurs are all a bit tired of this battle.

4 people found this helpful

James V. Holton

not much difference between de jure and de facto.

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2017

Verified Purchase

The author makes several compelling points as to the backlash against busing, arguably an effective tool to ensure integration.

Delmont argues that northern states blunted integration by specifying that only overt legal discrimination needed to be addressed. As a result, the "de facto" segregation patterns were overlooked, and Delmont argues that these de facto patterns were as discriminatory and effective as the "de jure" patterns common in the South. The Nixon administration's sympathy with white parents who didn't want their children to be "forced" to bus (though that was ok for black students) enabled white parents to frame busing as a civil rights issue, thus blunting the desegregation movement. White parents used the civil rights language to claim to speak for the interests of black parents as well, which is an interesting part of this book and one that's often overlooked or not nuanced.

5 people found this helpful

Best historical study of busing

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Why Busing Failed is the best study of the history of busing by far. Challenging traditional treatments of the subject, Delmont demonstrates that by focusing on busing and pockets of white resistance to it, the media and politicians obscured the policies and practices that produced segregated schools, especially in the North and suggested that blacks, rather than long-standing white resistance to equality was the problem. Very well researched and written.

One person found this helpful

The Ugly and Painful Truth Behind Anti-busing

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

An eye-opening and detailed examination of the actions of defiant politicians and parents against busing.

must read for "liberal" parents and educators

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

Excellent look at the media, communications and rhetoric strategies used outside the south to advocate for segregation without appearing to be overtly racist.

2 people found this helpful

Diane P. Johnson

Books like The Race Beat

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2016

This is a well written and informative book on U. S. school desegregation outside the deep South. The book details of the reaction & manipulations of politicians, the media, and parents groups to the challenges of court ordered desegregation, desegregation that was ordered because the courts found that the school had been purposely segregated. Books like The Race Beat, Warmth of Other Suns, An Idea Whose Time Has Come tell the story of change toward equal rights for all races . This book tells of the resistance to that change in the North & West.

One person found this helpful

Myth shattering

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2022

Verified Purchase

Incredibly well-written and engaging exploration of how "busing" became a stand-in for broader school desegregation efforts. Delmont does a wonderful job explaining the role of the media and politicians in framing everything in terms of "busing." By doing so, the narrative became more focused on White resistance than on the rights of Black students. Instead of talking about unconstitutional racial discrimination in housing, loan practices, and school zoning policies, the narrative was always on "busing" and how it harmed specifically white families (nevermind that busing was previously used to reinforce segregated schools).

Delmont also effectively criticizes the "de facto / de jure" distinction and how it's often used to justify an unjust school system.

Highly, highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

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