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Despite the absence of violence, few white Mississippians were ready to welcome the decision of the court. Only in districts with a high ratio of whites to blacks did desegregation bring a measure of integration. In Columbia, where whites outnumber blacks 3 to 1, high school students ignored eight pickets outside and sat down together in an assembly hall to cheer a black student leader who urged them to make their town "a lighthouse in Marion County." In Yazoo City, where the student population is almost evenly divided between whites and blacks, a majority of the whites showed up for registration and classes (see box opposite).
New Kind of Segregation. In districts where blacks are in the majority, however, opening day brought only a new kind of segregation as whites abandoned the public schools to the black invasion. In Natchez, where Baptist churches are pooling their resources to form private schools, a third of the city's 4,500 white students failed to register for classes. In Wilkinson County, where Confederate President Jefferson Davis spent his boyhood and blacks now outnumber whites by at least 3 to 1, only two white children—11-year-old Annette Brown and her brother, Thomas, 10—showed up for the first day of desegregated classes. Their father, eighth-grade Dropout Burnell Brown, says he would prefer, but cannot afford, to send them to school with whites. Thus, he is determined to keep them in public school despite pressure from the rest of the white community. "The main thing I want them to do is get an education," he said.
That is more than a great many Mississippi whites are going to get. The state has no compulsory-attendance law, and rather than let their children sit next to blacks, many poor parents plan to keep them out of school entirely. Thousands of others are planning to send their children to the more than 100 private "segregation academies" that have sprung up in Mississippi, often housed in church basements and unused factories.
Costly Decision. Their decision, which has inspired parents in Georgia and Alabama to establish similar schools, may prove costly both financially and educationally. Few of the schools charge less than $30 a month tuition, fewer still are properly equipped or accredited. Both blacks and Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Robert Finch are determined to keep them that way.
Well aware of the buying power of their dollars, more than 400 blacks met with Charles Evers, mayor of Fayette. They plan a selective buying campaign aimed at the pocketbooks of white merchants and businessmen who donate either money or equipment to the segregation academies. "We're not going to argue with white folks," Evers said. "We're just not going to support them. If we're not good enough for them to go to school with us, we're not good enough to spend money with them." Secretary Finch has called upon the Treasury Department to end the tax-exempt status now enjoyed by private schools that are being set up specifically to avoid integration.