1969 Call For An 'Open Society' In Winston-Salem Remains Unanswered

Fifty years ago, a local Triad-area man shared his vision for a better Winston-Salem, and at its core was the issue of race. That man was Mark H. Freeman, the director of the city's first Urban Coalition formed in the spring of 1968, shortly after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Freeman's address summarized the coalition's progress to date and outlined the challenges that lay ahead. He spoke to less than 20 citizens, but the transcript was printed in the then Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel, and news of his speech quickly spread, stirring lively debate across the city.

On the anniversary of Freeman's speech, where do things stand a half-century later?

Freeman called for an “Open Society” in Winston-Salem, one in which disadvantaged populations could enjoy equal opportunity. It was a sweeping oration, spanning some 20 minutes, and covering more than a dozen aspects of community life, from healthcare access to civic club membership. We'll look at three of them: housing, employment, and we begin with education.

In the summer of ‘69, Freeman reported that the root of what was wrong with his community was racial segregation. He urged that the desegregating of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools be fully implemented by the fall of that year, integrating all children into every phase of an equal educational program. It happened, but not until 1971. That's when the city was forced to desegregate. Racial balance was actually achieved within ten years through a system of busing, and court supervision was terminated in 1981. The community continued busing until, they didn't, says Wake Forest University professor Sara Dahill-Brown.

"Community frustration with busing crystallized really in the 1990s in Winston-Salem," says Dahill-Brown. "And during the spring and the summer of 1992, members of the all-white school board began to consider ending busing and returning to neighborhood-centered school assignment plans that had predominated during the 1960s."

The results of that change were dramatic.

"Since the decision to abandon the busing plan the proportion of schools that could be said to be racially balanced has been cut in half," she says. "And it's quite striking how almost no matter what measure you look at for segregation, it's increased in this district."

Dayhill-Brown says it's part of a pattern that has happened nationwide in many districts since they've been released from court supervision. Today, a large majority of Forsyth County's lowest performing elementary schools are in poor, African American neighborhoods. The highest performing? In affluent white communities of Winston-Salem, Lewisville, and Clemmons.

It's a stark comparison, only matched by the disparity that continues today in housing.

“The coalition should resolve that Winston-Salem must be open to any man to buy the house he can afford,” said Mark Freeman in 1969. His hope was an end to the then common practice known as redlining—banks unwilling to make conventional mortgage loans to primarily minority applicants. In theory, racial discrimination in lending ended in 1968 with the passage of the Fair Housing Act.

But Winston-Salem State University Professor Russ Smith says some areas of the city have been trapped in the past—locked into concentrated poverty.

"So there was a disinvestment in the east side of town, and that is something that today is still a legacy left over from those days," says Smith. "You know, developers, banks, people want to go to a location where they know that it's safe. If I build a neighborhood here I know I'm going to sell the homes. And [in] those areas, the track record over fifty or sixty years has been the north the west and the southern part of the city, and the east not as much."

Loans continued to be denied to home-seeking African Americans and Latinos here at much higher rates than their white counterparts. And then came the Recession. In 2012, housing values fell almost 50 percent in parts of East Winston. On the west side? Those values dropped between zero and 10 percent, says Craig Richardson. He directs the Center for the Study of Economic Mobility.

"And what that means is that the people in East Winston took a tremendous hit to their wealth," says Richardson. "Many of them had to go into bankruptcy, and that's certainly been trailing them for a long, long time. It makes it just one more challenge for getting up and out of poverty."

Mark Freeman also addressed employment equality. During his “Open Society” speech in 1969, he said, “The Urban Coalition should resolve that job training and opportunity be open to any qualified man.” Fifty years later, with the national unemployment rate among African Americans at the lowest level since the early 70s, Richardson says, particularly in places like East Winston, change remains slow. 

"It seems like a lot of the new jobs that are very visible to us particularly in the innovation quarter are tracking people from outside of the county," he says. "But that's not a big help to the residents of East Winston."

Taken on the whole, Freeman's call for an open society has yet to be fulfilled, says state Representative Evelyn Terry. As recently as the early 90s, Winston-Salem's at large election system effectively prevented people like her from winning seats on school boards in county-wide elections.

She says, "It may appear to be open, but unless you're on a level playing field with those who make the real decisions, the decisions that are made in the boardroom or at the Country Club before they get to the public are really the tenets of how Winston-Salem rule works."

Freeman was confident that true integration would come to this city. His only question was whether it would come by force of events, or by the open invitation of the community willing to work together. Only time will tell.