North Carolina offers an especially telling window into what is happening across this once legally segregated region where legislatures are now rapidly expanding and adopting controversial voucher-style programs.
Summary
Private schools founded during desegregation to maintain racial separation, known as “segregation academies,” are now receiving millions in taxpayer funds via voucher programs across the South.
In North Carolina, 20 such schools, predominantly white despite operating in diverse communities, have collectively received over $20 million in recent years.
These programs perpetuate racial inequality by siphoning funds from public schools, limiting access for Black families, and fostering segregation.
Despite concerns about transparency and accountability, voucher programs are expanding in the South, with limited data on their impact on racial demographics.
[Willingham] also said he encourages his constituents to take advantage of the vouchers. If there were any effort to make it more difficult for Black students to attend those schools, “then I would have a big problem,” Willingham said. “I don’t see that.”
There’s no effort to make it more difficult when it’s already impossible. And of course he’s from Rocky Mount. Go suck a railroad spike.