Small liberal arts and folk schools attempted desegregation decades before other
southern colleges and universities. Historians have long argued that Jews were
active and influential in the fight for civil rights in the South in the 1950s
and 1960s, but were Jews involved in these early attempts to enroll black
students in historically white schools? If they were, were they successful and
how did their Jewishness affect the efficacy of their attempts? In order to
answer these questions, this article compares and contrasts two such schools,
Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Highlander Folk School in
Tennessee, which established “integration programs” in the 1940s.
This research reveals that when Jews saturated a school, and were visibly
involved in desegregation, their attempts to desegregate the institution were
ultimately unsuccessful. When Jews supported a school through donations behind
the scenes and occasional visits, however, the institution successfully
desegregated.