Zora Hurston Case

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On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court passed its unanimous decision on the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Brown v. Board) case in favor of Oliver Brown. With its decision the Supreme Court had declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Slowly from that point on southerners began to integrate public schools, ending the fifty-eight year old “Separate but Equal” policy. Florida reluctantly started the integration process, seeing some relatively quick success, by 1962 in the northwestern portion of the state. However, in Central Florida the road to integration dragged on much slower, to the point that the Central Florida School District of Orange County was brought to trial in 1962. The matter …show more content…
Zora Hurston explained that the pride of her race prevented her from accepting the idea. She explained that forcing people to interact with another group of people that didn’t want to interact with them, was wrong. However, Hurston was not the only leader of the African American community that felt that integration was not the direction that the United States should be moving in. Satirist Oliver W. Harrington made his attack on the idea of integration with a cartoon he published in 1958. In the single panel, Harrington expressed his distrust in a white education system. He wrote “Yeah, but did you guys ever stop to realize if they let us go to their schools we’re going to wind up just as confused as those governors an’ judges!” Risking his position in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Harrington’s quick reaction to integrationists expressed that the issue needed to be solved within the African American community before it could be solved on a national level.
The discussion of integration in Central Florida’s public schools, of course was not limited to the African American community. In 1957, Jack Kerouac moved into Orlando and quickly became involved in the evolving integration discussion. Kerouac provided a unique perspective that was a symptom of the Beat culture. He expressed that the separation of the races allowed each community to develop …show more content…
In her analysis of Parramore and Orlando, Tana Porter uncovered that the idea was firmly planted in the area that segregation was preserving African American culture, and that as individuals pushed for integration they were seen as trying to duplicate white culture. The quest to preserve one culture over assimilating into another brought up the question if integration was needed. When she discussed the issue, Mrs. Moseley stated “We have our own school and good teachers. Do I need integration?”
However, as long as the “Freedom of Choice” policy was in place, the lack of participation validated Zora Hurston’s point of view while it also, gave policy makers in Central Florida the ability to keep off more invasive forms of forced integration. The responsibility of desegregating schools was put onto the students, in the eyes of the
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