Races keep their distance

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Greensboro, N.C, Sunday, December 13, 1987
News
& Record
Races keep their distance
Attitudes
on integration
belie the reality
By TOM STEADMAN
Staff Writer
This is Guilford County, where
20 years after forced integration,
blacks and whites drink from the
same water fountains, attend the
same schools and often work
shoulder-to-shoulder at the same
jobs.
This is the cradle of the lunch
counter sit-ins, the home of a
proud black university that has
produced graduates such as astronaut Ron McNair and presidential
candidate Jesse Jackson. Where
district voting has put blacks on
the Guilford County Board of
Commissioners, the Greensboro
City Council, the High Point City
Council. Where Greensboro, which
is one-third black, has a black police chief.
Yes, this is Guilford, whose reputation was bloodied eight years
ago by a brief, deadly confronta-
TWO WORLDS
■ Maintaining integration
challenge for schools — A15
■ Students of the 70s recall
busing — A15
■ Why and how we did this
series — B3	
tion between communists and Ku
Klux Klansmen in Greensboro.
This is where a young black is far
more likely than his or her white
counterpart to drop out of school,
land a low-paying job, be laid off,
go to jail or have an unwanted
child.
Key poll findings
■ 78% of blacks and 50% of
whites surveyed said school
desegregation has been good
for children's education.
■ 59% of blacks and 22% of
whites think Guilford County
needs to be more racially
integrated.
■ 81 % of blacks and 54% of
whites said they would rather
live in racially mixed
neighborhoods.
■ 47% of blacks and 24% of
whites believe housing
available to blacks in
Greensboro is not as good as
the housing available to
whites.
Other poll results — A14
Where most blacks still live east
of the Market Street overpass and
where white home-buyers yearn to
move to Greensboro's affluent
northwest. Where merger between Guilford County's three
school systems has been held up
for years, in part by fearful white
parents. Where black athletes star
on the playing field and whites
dominate the head-coaching ranks.
This is Guilford, where whites
are largely middle class and content and where the message being
sent is that it's still not quite OK
to be black.
Consider these findings from a
recent News & Record poll of Guilford County residents:
• Most people think school integration has been a good thing.
• Most whites, however, say integration has gone far enough.
• Most blacks call for more
gains.
• Few people care whether
country clubs and churches are integrated.
• Segregated neighborhoods are
frowned upon, even though housing patterns in Guilford remain
largely all-white or all-black.
• The "black vote" is considered
influential, even though few blacks
hold public office.
• Greensboro is pretty much
like other places when it comes to
race relations.
Hardly anyone in Guilford Coun-
(See Survey, A14)