Columbus Mileposts | Sept. 6, 1979: First day of school busing accomplished quietly

Busing, the remedy for decades of intentional segregation in the Columbus school district, began peacefully on Sept. 6, 1979.

Although other cities, notably Boston, had been wracked by violence when busing started, Columbus took it in stride. A few anti-busing pickets showed up at some schools but dispersed when asked. Columbus police had 50 officers on stand-by, and some 4,000 volunteers were on hand in the schools to help students find their way.

About 35,000 of the city’s 78,000 students were bused to achieve integration. Black students were transported to schools in white residential areas; white students to black residential areas.

East High School went from 90?percent black in 1978 to 62?percent white in 1979. In Clintonville, Clinton Elementary School went from 99 percent white to 48 percent black.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Duncan ruled in 1977 that Columbus Board of Education practices for decades had “intentionally aggravated, rather than alleviated,” racial separation in the schools by, for example, allowing white families whose children otherwise would attend black neighborhood schools to send them to predominately white schools.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Duncan’s findings, and busing began in fall 1979.

Busing coincided with — and helped fuel — a “white flight” to suburban school districts, but such an exodus already had begun. In 1969, Columbus schools had 110,000 students; by 1977, enrollment had dropped to 95,000. In 1985, when the school district was released from federal court control, enrollment stood at 67,000.

The school board continued busing on its own for 10 more years before returning to neighborhood schools in 1996, which brought resegregation. Duncan, however, said that wasn’t considered intentional. “If you’re going to have neighborhood schools, you’re going to have one-race schools in urban America,” Duncan reflected in 1999.

Suggestions for Mileposts that will run this bicentennial year can be sent to Gerald Tebben, Box 82125, Columbus, OH 43202, or email gtebben@columbus.rr.com.