La. (AP) – At first glance, the difference is clear. The walls at Feride High School are old and worn, surrounded by barbed wire. Just a few miles away, Vidalia High School is clean and bright, with a new library and a refreshing blue “V” painted on orange bricks.
It’s Feride High 90% black. Vidalia High is 62% white.
For black families, the contrast between schools suggests that “we shouldn’t have more finesse.” “It’s like our kids don’t deserve it,” he said.
The school is part of the Parish of Concordia, Separated 60 years ago And to this day it is under court-ordered plans. But there is growing momentum to free the district from decades-old orders that some call out to be outdated.
In a surprising reversal, the Justice Department said it plans to rewind the court order. Separation plan Civil Rights Movement Date. It began in April when authorities lifted a 1960s order in Louisiana’s Parish of Plaquemins. Hermet Dillon, who heads the department’s Civil Rights Division, says others “bite the dust.”
It was pressured by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry and his Attorney General, who called for the orders to be lifted for the rest of the state. They describe the order as a burden on districts and artefacts from a time when black students were still forbidden from some schools.
Orders were always intended to be temporary. School systems can be released if they demonstrate a completely eradicated separation. Decades later, the goal remains elusive, with severe racial imbalances continuing in many districts.
Civil rights groups say it is important to maintain the order as a tool to address the legacy of mandatory segregation, including disparities in student discipline, academic programs and teacher employment. They point to cases like Concordia, where order decades ago was used to stop charter schools from supporting white students in hospitalization.
“Concordia is old, but a lot is happening there,” said Duel Ross, deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “This is true in many of these cases. They don’t just sit quietly.”
The consolidation debate is far from being resolved
Last year, before President Donald Trump took office, Concordia Parish rejected the Justice Department’s plan.
At a meeting at the city hall, Vidaria residents were vigorously opposed the plan, disrupting student lives and exposing children to drugs and violence. Officials with the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office opposed the proposal, saying the Trump administration will likely change courses with an older order.
Accepting the plan would have been a “death sentence” for the district, said former Concordia manager Paul Nelson. The white family would have fled to private schools and other districts, and said Nelson wanted to remove the court order.
“Now it’s time to move on,” said Nelson, who left the district in 2016.
At Feliday High, athletic coach Derrick Davis helped combine Feliday and Vidalia schools. He said every time his team visits a school with new sports facilities, district disparities focus.
“I have everything we need when we all come together,” he said.
Others oppose merging schools if done solely to achieve racial balance. “It’s going to different places they’re not used to, and it’s going to be a culture shock for some people,” said Marcus Martin, Feliday’s School Resource Officer.
The district’s current supervision and school board did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal Orders Provide Leverage for Racism Cases
Concordia is one of more than 120 districts in the south that remain under the order of separation from the 1960s and 1970s.
Ordering historical artefacts is “clearly wrong,” Shaheena Simons said.
“Segregation and inequality continue in our schools, and they still stick to districts under the separation order,” she said.
With court orders in place, families facing discrimination can reach out directly to the Department of Justice or seek relief from the court. Otherwise, the only option would be to litigation, and many families could not afford it, Simons said.
Concordia was ordered to fight over a charter school that opened in 2013 on the former campus of All White Private Schools. To protect local progress on racial integration, the judge ordered Delta Charter Schools to build a student body that reflects the district’s racial statistics. However, in the first year, only 15% of schools were black.
After the court challenge, Delta was ordered to give priority to black students. Today, about 40% of students are black.
The separation order was recently invoked in other cases in the state. Some people led to orders addressing disproportionately high percentages of discipline for black students, while others moved primarily black primary schools. From a site close to a chemical plant.
The Department of Justice can easily terminate some separation orders
The Trump administration was able to close the Plakemins case with little resistance, as the original plaintiffs were no longer involved. The Department of Justice only litigated cases. Concordia and other unknown numbers of districts are in the same situation, making them vulnerable to rapid firing.
The Concordia lawsuit dates back to 1965, where the area was strictly segregated and home to violent derivations of the Ku Klux Klan. The federal government intervened when Feliday’s black families sued for access to an all-white school.
White families fled Feliday as the district consolidated the schools. District schools now reflect demographics of the surrounding area. Feridee is primarily black and low-income, but Vidalia is mostly white and receives tax revenue from hydroelectric power plants. Monterey, the third town in the district, has a 95% white high school.
At City Hall in December, Vidaria resident Ronnie Blackwell said the area “feels like Mayberry, it’s great.” The federal government “probably destroyed more communities and school systems than it has helped before,” he said.
Under court orders, Concordia must allow students from a majority of black schools to move to a majority of white schools. It also files reports on teacher demographics and student discipline.
Court documents say Concordia will argue that the judge should reject the order after failing to negotiate a resolution with the Justice Department. Meanwhile, amid a wave of resignations in the federal government, all but two Justice Department lawyers assigned to the case have left.
Without court oversight, Brian Davis believes there is little hope for improvement.
“A lot of parents here at Ferriday are stuck here because they don’t have the resources to move their children from A to B here,” he said. “You’ll find a school like Feliday. For me, the term is to slip into the darkness.”
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