PONTIAC: HOW PEOPLE RESPOND TO BUSING

...When asked why they had changed their minds, they initially avoided the question, but finally responded: Well, they sent us all those letters...

...All respondents were in manual occupations, primarily in semiskilled factory work, and fell within our "working-class" income criteria ($5,000–$10,000) . This group of "neighborhood" people saw busing as a problem primarily because it involved loss of control over one's children...

...In our previous research, a frequent reason given for political inactivity had been that political involvement would interfere with family life...

...They had put up their home for sale and even were talking of returning to the South if necessary...

...There was another motivation for this intense political involvement...

...The school day had to be shortened so that buses could transport two sets of students...

...We can work within it—we can recall congress men or print ads of their voting records...

...We attended their rallies...

...It has to do with representative gov ernment...

...THESE EVENTS were of particular interest to us...

...NAG was formed approximately three years ago to "give people a greater voice in local political issues...

...The NAG activists believed that the government, in mandating busing, was unresponsive to their crucial needs...

...Blacks indeed probably had greater reason for fear, especially in the first few days of school, since demonstrations were taking place at the white schools to which black children were being bused...

...Though "the neighborhood" people's in dividualized solutions were often piecemeal and sporadic, they were practical adaptations to a difficult situation...

...Because they identified spe cific targets of change against which direct ac tion was possible, the "neighborhood" people could feel more personally efficacious than the political NAG activists who were trying to modify an abstract and seemingly unchange able system...

...Yet when the issue was busing, the value placed on family life motivated involvement...

...Then when a kid is seen around there we call the "MA" in that area, and she goes out and gets him...

...Both have their "newer areas" near the city boundaries as well as their "decaying neighborhoods...

...We maintain that such a simplified "explanation" is worse than none at all...

...There'sabout 3000 of us...

...Whenever a parent sends his child to school and, to some extent, gives up control of his child, his anxiety usually is mitigated by the fact that the child remains in the neighborhood, in a known and trusted school—and therefore he feels that the child is still within his domain of influence...

...Thus, with regard to most issues, the strong value placed on family life is an obstacle to mass political participation...

...We reject as inherently conservative the view that "racism" is a static quality and prefer to view human behavior in interracial settings as a product of the participants' interests and interactions, seeing race only as one of the factors...

...yet under the threat of forced busing for NOTEBOOK two years, some of the recent migrants have considered such a move...

...Phone relays were set up to pass information...

...NAG leaders had successfully convinced people of the strength of their numbers...

...El * These suggestions, made with the benefit of hindsight, might help guide school districts that will beimplementing busing in the future...

...It seems unfair to place the financial and social cost of ending segregation on such relatively poor communities as Pontiac, simply because the majority of blacks is clustered in these areas...

...All drivers could be screened for competence, frequent maintenance and safety checks could be made, and evidence of these screenings and checks offered to the public...

...Both immediate reactions were similar—a united effort to resist busing by whatever means available...

...Yet of greater significance was the fact that the National Action Group (NAG) had been able to mobilize large crowds to participate in several rallies before school opened, in mass picketing aimed to prevent buses from leaving their parking lots on the first day of school, and in angry demonstrations at the board of education building and many schools...

...In one of our "neighborhood" families, the daughter said she saw few problems with busing, while the father was vehemently opposed to it...

...What they resented was that the government imposed the busing policy upon them without their consent...

...Even the "heart" of Pontiac—its downtown area—is overshadowed by the plants...

...Several people, for example, talked about busing as the beginning of a process in which the government would gradually remove individual freedoms, which would eventually lead to direct interference in the life of the family...

...Yet the downtown area is significant in terms of black-white interaction...

...This feeling was expressed by a man on the NAG bus trip to the state capital, organized to persuade the governor and the state legislators to "do something": There's so much more involved here than just busing...

...None of them blamed the "ordinary Negro parent...

...We set out to investigate the Pontiac busing controversy in order to see what unique features accounted for such uncharacteristically intense political action among workingclass people...

...Thus, school authorities under court order to implement a busing plan have had no choice but to take the money from other programs If this dilemma is to be avoided, and since segregation and inferior schools for blacks are national issues, the money to cope with busing must come from national sources...

...During the summer of 1971, Federal Judge Daman Keith issued a ruling stating that Pontiac's schools had been deliberately segregated by the school board and the administration, and ordering a busing program to achieve an approximately equal racial balance in all elementary and junior-high schools...

...They said there'd be a $10 fine for every day they [the children] didn't attend...

...Great care should be taken to see that no student, black or white, receives a poorer education resulting from busing...

...The busing plan, however, made people feel that they had been "let down," that the "agreement" between them and their elected representatives had been violated...

...We therefore sought an explanation for this difference between the people who adapted to the busing situation through various personal means and those who continued to try to stop busing by working through NAG's organizational channels...

...WITHIN A MONTH after school opened, there was a marked change in the orientation toward busing...

...That's why I bought this house, so my kids could go right here to school...

...A large percentage of the population in both sides of town consists of recent migrants, black and white, from the small towns and rural areas of the Southern and border states, drawn to Pontiac by the promise of good wages in the auto industry and the hope of a "better life...

...We've accepted busing as long as the kids stay out of trouble, and don't get hurt...

...Since "neighborhood" people defined the problem essentially as one of losing control and of the safety of their children, they moved to deal with these concerns within the existing situation...

...In our research in both Pontiac and other working-class communities, we have observed that most working-class people do not expect or want to participate actively in government, except by voting...

...we participated in their political activities, such as a bus trip to the state capital...

...This change in orientation occurred at a time when NAG was extremely active in Pontiac and, from an outsider's perspective, did not appear to be losing mass support...

...The politicians just don't care about the people they are supposed to serve...

...we observed their neighborhood and family interactions...

...Most of them attributed responsibility to individuals or highly visible groups of people: local NAACP lawyers, black militants, Judge Daman Keith, or "liberal do-gooders who have wrecked everything...

...Let's use the system to do what it is meant to do...

...One of our neighborhood respondents who lived within two blocks of two schools expressed his feelings as follows: What I can't see is how I have to send my kids half across town to school when I have one school right over here [pointing down the block] and another one right over there [pointing two blocks away...

...We hope that our analysis, insofar as it leads to constructive efforts to reduce black/white tensions created by busing, may benefit everyone concerned...

...The former were interviewed at NAG events, while we talked with the latter in their own neighborhood...

...Once busing seemed inevitable many people chose their individual methods of adaptation based on their own personal definition of the problem...

...We welcome such a report by black researchers...

...Regardless of its merits, busing will probably continue to be a major technique toward equalizing educational opportunities, until a better strategy is devised...

...In contrast to the ongoing political concerns of the NAG activists, the short-term political activity of the "neighborhood" people centered around the immediate issue of busing—and the desire for safety and for control of their chil dren...

...Shortly after the busing began, the rear axle fell off a bus...

...And I just couldn't afford to send my kids to the Freedom School...

...The people living in Pontiac's all-white suburbs, including most of the executives of the local GM plants, have at least as much responsibility for the segregation suffered by blacks as do the working-class people in the city areas...

...Wide Track Drive, which encircles the downtown area, enables people to go across town without touching downtown and makes a large shopping center on Pontiac's outskirts accessible to residents of all parts of the city...

...Clearly then, these people did not think that going to school with blacks was the decisive factor in their opposition to busing...

...People who had previously vowed that they would never allow their children to be bused, even if it meant moving out of the state or going to jail, had changed their minds rather quickly...

...When entering Pontiac, Michigan, one is immediately struck by the number and size of its industrial plants...

...In contrast with their earlier active participation in NAG, they now were no NOTEBOOK longer involved or even aware of NAG's events...

...In the busing controversy, however, people made elaborate adjustments in order to become politically active...

...The greatest objective risk was probably in participating in the NAG school boycott...

...In many cases, we were also unable to get standard demographic data on NAG members...

...Again, since busing attempts to deal with a national prob lem, it seems reasonable to use federal funds to pay parents to provide such services.* In Pontiac, many of the youths, particularly at the junior-high level, have shown that they can get along with blacks...

...this was later traced to faulty maintenance...

...A year later, by summer 1972, NAG's efforts were almost exclusively directed toward securing passage of an amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit busing as a means of achieving racial balance in the schools...

...Even before busing became an issue, the leaders of NAG were intensely involved in political activity: INTERVIEWER: I'm interested in how you orig inally got started...

...RESPONDENT: No, I can't think of anything...

...And after the turbulence of the first few days of the term had subsided, all our respondents who had initially kept their children out of school sent those children who would attend the neighborhood schools back to class—although black children now would be bused in to attend these schools...

...We recognize this deficiency in our report...

...National attention was drawn to Pontiac in 1971 when, about a week before school opened, ten of the city's school buses were bombed...

...NAG now consists primarily of middle-class people who have the interest and resources for political activity on a sustained basis, as well as of a growing number of people active in right-wing movements...

...It is in this spirit that we make the following suggestions...

...An important factor in our respondents' attitude toward busing was whom they held responsible for the busing decision...

...According to Ely Chinoy's study, The Automobile Worker and the American Dream (Doubleday, cloth, 1955...

...it separates the largely black South Side from the nearly all-white North Side...

...Another woman, who had been active in NAG but had later withdrawn, adapted to busing by using her large station wagon to drive her own and several other children to school every day, to keep some measure of control in the new situation...

...Three weeks later, they were sending their children back to the public schools...

...In other controversies, people had cited work schedules and child-care responsibilities as major reasons for noninvolvement...

...No criticismof the Pontiac school administrations is implied...

...We were interested in a number of things that were happening in local politics...

...None of them took any of the steps used by the "neighborhood" people to adopt to busing...

...INTERVIEWER: Can you remember anything in particular that first got you interested...

...After the busing court order, busing became NAG's sole issue...

...In every case, only those children who actually would be bused were kept out of school...

...We must not talk of destroying it...

...However, where people perceive busing as a threat to their children and to some of their most cherished values, increased racial harmony is unlikely...

...Action could be taken to ensure the bused children's physical safety...

...A number of specific strategies might have eased the tensions in Pontiac and could be utilized in the future in other communities undergoing busing...

...In one family we interviewed, the change from trying to avert a crisis to adapting to an "inevitable" situation was particularly marked...

...Teams of children were organized to distribute flyers urging parents to boycott busing...

...yet even here most respondents perceived a low risk, at least initially...

...So I don't think they'll throw 'em in, maybe just fine 'em...

...We did not interview any NAG activists in their homes and therefore cannot compare them on this basis with the "neighborhood" respondents...

...Beacon, paper, 1965), one of the ways auto workers adjust to dead-end jobs is by investing both emotionally and financially in the dream that their children will do better...

...Harmful rumors could be avoided by providing parents with accurate information about the busing procedure...

...They were usually not willing to delegate this responsibility to child-care centers or baby-sitters...

...When it became apparent that the court would not rescind its order, parents tried to force the school board to take action by keeping their children out of school—thus reducing state aid to the Pontiac schools...

...A money shortage can probably be expected wherever busing is implemented...

...RESPONDENT: Well, we're trying to get at least one mother in each section of town...

...They were asking $10 for each child...

...There ain't but 360 [sic] daysin a year and they all gotta have their dayin court, so how can they do it...

...RESPONDENT: Well, it started just as a political action group...

...RESPONDENT: We're going to put a stop to our kids skipping school...

...We just wanted to get involved...

...At first, the issue of the politicians' unresponsiveness was another reason for mobilization...

...The neighborhood in which we interviewed our respondents and which had been randomly chosen was a solidly working-class area...

...Those who blamed "the system" usually specified the courts or the NAACP as the source of the trouble...

...Just like me—I don't care what you do to me, but if you mess with my kids, I'll fight—I'll fight back hard...

...School administrators might structure group meetings of youths and parents so that parents might learn more about their children's school experiences...

...We began our research by asking our respondents why they had become intensively involved in the busing protests—an activity that contrasts so sharply with the general norm of working-class people...

...As soon as your kid skips more than one day, you're automatically a member...

...By this time, NAG was almost totally divorced from the problems of busing in Pontiac, seeing itself as the leader of a nationwide fight against busing...

...but, as white researchers, we do not feel competent to describe the black perspecNOTEBOOK 215 tive...

...This perception of busing as a threat to the children's future is illustrated by the following quote from one of our respondents: I mean I've never been in groups like this before...

...People felt that most blacks also did not want busing but preferred to have their children remain in neighborhood schools...

...Therefore, more equitable means of sharing these burdens seem to be a necessary first step in easing the tensions surrounding the busing issue...

...In the Pontiac case, racial differences clearly did not completely explain the great groundswell of opposition to busing for integration...

...The problem of traffic accidents was another salient point...

...if they are negative, parents, children, and school personnel would be accurately informed of what is happening and may then work to resolve conflicts...

...With the older children, truancy became a problem...

...Few people are around during the day, and at night the streets are nearly deserted...

...They generally assume that their elected representatives will conduct governmental affairs to promote their interest...

...I've got mothers calling me all the time—asking me to check on their children because they've been skipping...

...When interviewing people, we listened while they told their story in their own words, and later recorded as closely as possible from memory what they had said...

...Although to a middle-class observer, the amenities available to the Pontiac factory worker may seem minimal, for many Pontiac residents—especially for the recent migrants from the coal-mining areas—their present situation was a decided improvement over the past...

...This contrasted sharply with the attitudes of the middle-class NAG members, whose sense of being mistreated by government was a basis for continuous political activity...

...The concerns parents expressed about physical distance could be lessened by arranging for parents with cars to pick up any neighborhood children who become ill at school and whose parents are unable to get them...

...We observed NAG's activities and also investigated the reasons for the split that was beginning to divide Pontiac residents—a split between those who remained politically active in NAG and others who withdrew and tried to deal with busing on an individual rather than an organizational level...

...Those who did talk, still expressed many of the old fears but said the risks involved in further resistance were too great...

...They talked of send ing their children to a "neighborhood academy" 214 rather than having them bused...

...The high schools were not affected by this order, because they were substantially integrated...

...After NAG had initiated a court suit challenging the bus drivers' competence, a court-appointed arbitrator found a large number of drivers unfit...

...In some cases, more than physical safety was involved...

...A "threat" to children is particularly poignant to working-class people, who often have a high emotional investment in their children...

...I'm not a joiner...

...We do, of course, not assume that black families did not feel threatened by busing, or that all blacks were in favor of busing...

...So we figured we had to do it...

...people, for example, worked less hours, brought their children to rallies, or cooperated in baby-sitting arrangements...

...Neighbors eagerly discussed the weekly rallies— and cooperated in providing child-care, rides, and other needed services to enable a maximum number of people to attend the antibusing demonstrations...

...Out of this quote emerges the sense of being a "family protector," which, we have observed, is an important aspect of the workingclass man's self-image...

...Most of the NAG people we interviewed considered busing at best a questionable idea, and at worst a "ridiculous experiment...

...Unfortunately, too many observers have done little more than offer this explanation for the emergence of such groups as NAG...

...Recent developments in the auto industry suggest that such an adjustment is more important now than it was in 1950, when Chinoy did his research...

...These industrial giants —Pontiac Motors, GMC Truck and Coach, and Fisher Body—make the rest of the city seem insignificant, and the person working within these industrial behemoths may well develop feelings of powerlessness...

...As the people directly affected by the Pontiac busing situation turned to other forms of activity, NAG's constituency began to change...

...A number of "special programs" also had to be eliminated to free money for busing...

...Our initial research was concerned with the issue of mass mobilization...

...PARENTS saw busing as a threat to their children's physical safety, their moral integrity, their emotional security, and the quality of their education...

...Many of these peohad sacrificed much to achieve even a small degree of security...

...The latter were particularly prominent in the NAG national convention, which we observed in February 1972...

...INTERVIEWER: How does it work...

...To NAG activists, as predominantly middleclass people, the idea of entrusting their children to agents of the school system seemed not as threatening as to the "neighborhood" people...

...A few were reluctant to talk about the change, apparently embarrassed that now their actions were inconsistent with their previous protestations...

...We feel reasonably certain, however, that most of them were either middle-class or approachNOTEBOOK ing middle-class status (with white-collar occupations and $15,000 + income) . Wherever we obtained socioeconomic data, this conclusion was verified...

...Course you know thistime the Communists have picked the wrongissue...

...Their leaders emphasized working within the political system, using the established means for redress of grievances: We have the most beautiful system in the world...

...As one respondent said: I figure they can't throw us all in jail...

...They thought they had much to lose by inactively accepting the changes they believed would be brought about by busing...

...Thus it is understandable that the prospect of turning one's children over to the "government" to be bused to a distant section of the city seemed particularly threatening...

...Many working-class people are not even favorably inclined to sending their children to camp, or to a playground outside the neighborhood...

...When the experiences are positive, parents' fears may gradually be reduced...

...After this strategy failed, NAG assumed a national role in organizing resistance to busing...

...We used the research techniques of "participant observation" and "unstructured interviewing"—in other words, we NOTEBOOK set out to enter the milieu of the white workingclass people of Pontiac...

...Many have come from the de pres:ed areas of Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky, to escape uncertain employ ment and the difficult, dangerous working conditions in the coal mines...

...Except for the racial difference, little else distinguishes the two sides of town...

...Parental fears could be allayed by having black and white parents discuss common worries with school personnel before school begins...

...MAS now was seen as a more appropriate means than NAG in meeting the problem of maintaining control over one's children...

...Many hope that it will facilitate understanding between whites and blacks...

...And in both sides of town, most neighborhoods are composed of small, singlefamily frame houses—the kind a factory worker can "just about afford...

...In Pontiac, a shortage of funds forced a number of cutbacks that probably affected the quality of instruction...

...WE HAVE REPORTED on a number of legitimate concerns and fears expressed by white workingclass people affected by busing...

...Many respondents saw busing also as a threat to their family life in general...

...Many people raised the related issue of safety...

...To return to these conditions is not an attractive alterna tive...

...We ob served, however, that the politicians' unresponsiveness was not as salient for working-class persons as the issue of control over their children...

...THE FINAL DISTINCTION between the "neighborhood people" and the NAG activists was in their mode of adaptation to the busing crisis...

...This greatly upset people and pushed them, at least temporarily, toward political action...

...One woman believed that truancy occurred because children going to school in a strange neighborhood thought they would not be caught...

...Although school and court authorities threatened charges of child 212 NOTEBOOK neglect against parents participating in the boycott, most respondents believed that jail sentences would not be imposed...

...That's what bothers me...

...Whatever the objective reality, most whites are convinced that the crime rate in many black neighborhoods in Pontiac is very high...

...people were organizing to preserve conditions from which they believed to be benefiting...

...in previous sociological research we had observed that, traditionally, working-class people do not mobilize for political action, particularly when confrontation tactics are involved...

...We interviewed active NAG members who consciously identified with NAG as an organization— and also others who had participated in many of NAG's early activities but did not conceive of themselves as NAG members...

...At first, shortly after school started, these par ents were very involved in NAG activities— attending rallies weekly and passing out litera ture in the neighborhood...

...From these interviews emerged several explanations...

...Parents could help reduce their children's fears about a new situation by accompanying them on the bus or serving as teachers' aides within the schools...

...High school students of course are not being bused, and no significant protests have been expressed against integration at the high school level...

...In the meantime, their house was still up for sale...

...Besides, who'sgoing to pay the welfare for all these men ifthey go to jail...

...Several people feared that their children might suffer emotional problems in the different surroundings, especially in the atmosphere of tension that existed at the beginning of the school year...

...Therefore, their actions were directed toward influencing the political system—writing and phoning congressmen, lobbying, boycotting, picketing, marching, and petitioning for a constitutional amendment...

...When you try to take the children out ofa woman's arms, then you're going to have trouble...

...At first, when reversing the court decision seemed possible, everyone joined together to exert maximum pressure toward that goal...

...To meet this truancy problem, she had organized a citywide group of mothers, "Mothers Against Skipping," (MAS) to watch out for truant children...

...Our report, in one sense, is unbalanced, for it lacks consideration of the problems faced by Pontiac's black residents...

...This shift was especially noticeable to us among the people we had been interviewing weekly since the beginning of the school year...

...The "neighborhood" people were the first to send their children back to school and to withdraw from active participation in NAG...

...consequently, they now were willing to sacrifice further to preserve what they had attained...

...All our neighborhood respondents voiced similar objections, even a woman who favored busing and had sent her children to school on the first day of the term, despite pressure from her neighbors to join the boycott...

...At first, NAG attempted massive resistance in order to force abandonment of the plan...

...Our analysis shows that the original mass base of NAG membership in Pontiac is eroding, since that original base was composed primarily of working-class people...

...Activity ran high on the neighborhood level, too...

...By contrast, the risks in taking action against busing seemed to them small...

...Our working-class respondents constantly stressed the importance of this control—of having the mother at home to supervise personally the children...

...216 NOTEBOOK...

...Local residents have registered their objections to busing by voting against funding proposals for busing in local schools...

...By incorporating other groups throughout the nation, NAG has become involved in issues other than busing, and so its appeal to the Pontiac workingclass person has become somewhat limited...

...The feeling that busing is being imposed by an "unrepresentative government" could be reduced by involving an interracial group of parents, over a period of several months before school opens, in planning and implementing the busing program...

...I told them [the children] to be careful...

...These problems must be minimized if busing is not to be a cause of greater racial antagonisms...

...Hostility between blacks and whites had, of course, a great deal to do with the activities of NAG and with the resistance of white people to the busing plan...

...Integration has existed in the Pontiac high schools at least since World War II...