Date of Award
5-2024
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Academic Program
History BA
Department
History
First Advisor
Dr. Max Grivno, Ph.D.
Advisor Department
History
Abstract
For decades, the city of Demopolis, Alabama, in Marengo County has been viewed by West Alabama administrators as a “beacon of hope” in terms of race relations because it successfully integrated its public schools and managed to keep private segregation academies at bay. In the neighboring city of Linden, however, integration was far less successful, with a a segregated private school siphoning off the white students and eroding white support for public education. dominating and destroying the educational structure of the city. In this paper, I delve into how the dichotomy between these two nearby cities was created by the attitudes of the people who lived in them. Where Demopolis reacted to integration with a tense indifference that allowed integration to prosper with lingering side effects, Linden reacted with hostility, a reaction that would negatively affect the city for decades to come.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Ogden, Benjamin, "Tense Indifference: An Examination of Integration in Two Cities in Marengo County, Alabama" (2024). Honors Theses. 959.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/959