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.

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