State Senator's death highlights the need to renew our commitment to an integrated society

Vernon Malone died this past weekend. The long-time Wake County politician apparently died in the same humble way that he lived and served his community – of natural causes after having mowed his own yard. 

Though Malone served in a variety of public offices over a period of three-and-a-half tumultuous decades, he was not known as a firebrand or attention-seeker. During the last six years of his life – in which he served in the state Senate – he was very much a sober, quiet and non-boat rocking figure. By all appearances, he got on well with the Senate's conservative and business-friendly leadership. He seldom gave passionate speeches or fought high-profile, public battles. If anything, he was sometimes a bit of a distant figure to advocates for many progressive causes.

And still, despite his subdued persona of recent years, there was never any doubt about Malone's deep devotion to progressive change in what has been, in many ways, the defining issue on the progressive agenda during the last half century: the fight for racial integration and equality.

On this front, Malone was a staunch integrationist – a tough man who had known the evils of the nation's shameful, segregated past very personally and who had worked at the epicenter of the battle between those who resisted change (or sought to reverse it) and those who envisioned a truly integrated society. That epicenter, of course, was the battle over our public schools.

Here's how Raleigh's News & Observer described his accomplishments in this vital area:

"Of all his accomplishments in public life, it was his work in the 1970s that led to the merger of the Raleigh city and Wake County school systems that made him the most proud, said his son Barry.

While other systems put off merging until much later — Durham's consolidated in 1992 — Wake County schools and Raleigh schools became one system in 1976. The merger changed the county's real estate landscape, as all homes were in the same school district. As the unified school system thrived and developed a reputation for first-rate schools, many newcomers to the region were drawn to Wake County for its schools. What started as a decision about education also fueled two decades of rapid growth in Wake County.

‘His legacy is the success that we've achieved with the Wake County schools,' said John Gilbert, who served on the Wake school board from 1983 to 1999. Without Malone's leadership, the merger ‘could not have happened.'"

News columnist, Ruth Sheehan of the N&O, had a very similar take in an excellent column in yesterday's paper.

In other words, in the estimations of some important people who ought to know, Vernon Malone was one of the key players in helping to drag North Carolina's capital county out of its narrow-minded, backward-looking past into its modern incarnation as a bastion of comparative progress and prosperity. It was and is quite an accomplishment.

Backtracking on progress?

Given Malone's role in such an important and historic achievement, it is troubling that his death seems to have coincided with the current period of unrest that grips Wake County's public schools. Today, at the very moment in which the county and its residents are reaping the benefits of the work of Malone and other people of vision, a new wave of pessimists seems determined to re-segregate the schools.

Even as Malone is laid to rest this week, opponents of Wake's integrated school system are planning and organizing to undo his handiwork. Frustrated at the imperfections of their own children's school assignments, many parents (some of them, as in the sad years gone by, among the most comfortably affluent) are putting together political action committees and raising money in order to elect a new school board that is committed to a pro-"neighborhood schools" platform.

Though the intentions and language may be different than in the years in which Vernon Malone confronted these issues so directly, make no mistake, these efforts are ultimately about one main thing – regardless of whether the proponents will admit it to themselves. That thing, of course, is the re-segregation of the capital county's schools – both by socio-economic class and by race. This is what has happened in Charlotte-Mecklenburg after it abandoned its commitment to integration in recent years and is what seems poised to happen all over the country in light of recent conservative court decisions.    

Saying "no" to retreat

The proponents of "neighborhood schools" may attempt to cloak or soften the ultimate designs of their campaign by highlighting their commitment to devoting extra resources for schools in tough neighborhoods – a kind of "separate but equal-plus" approach. They may also seek to portray themselves as victims – as in "We don't want our children to be the subjects of some sociological experiment."

But what these arguments fail to acknowledge is this simple fact: The kind of socio-economic integration practiced in Wake County long ago ceased to be an "experiment." It isn't some ivory tower academic's doctoral thesis run wild. Rather it is a rational, hard headed, proven approach to making our schools and community better and healthier for everyone. Its central premise – that systems which keep the percentage of very poor children in any one school from going above a prescribed level (usually 40%) have a much better chance of securing positive outcomes for all – remains unchallenged.

(As a side note, it should be pointed out that Wake's integrated system is also more cost effective than Charlotte-Mecklenburg's. Perhaps that explains the longstanding support of the county's tax-averse business community and, in turn, Malone's close relationship with that same community).     

Is it a perfect system? Of course not. It's been designed and implemented by flawed human beings under difficult-to-impossible political demands. It is a huge task to educate 137,000 children under the best of circumstances.

But consider the alternative. Imagine what Raleigh and Wake County would be like today had leaders like Vernon Malone not had the vision and courage they displayed. All one has to do is to look at the array of northern and Midwestern cities of comparable size that have allowed their downtowns and urban areas to become hollowed-out, decaying carcasses surrounded by comfortable, well-to-do suburbs.

Indeed, it's one of the great ironies of the current situation that much of the current demand for "neighborhood schools" is being driven by transplants from many of those same cities who have relocated to Raleigh's suburbs – in part because of the good schools!

Going forward

That Wake County is not in the same boat as other more segregated and less successful areas is not an accident. It is the direct byproduct of intentional, progressive public policy as envisioned and implemented by people like Vernon Malone. In the weeks and months ahead, state and local policymakers could do no greater honor to this man and his memory than to renew their commitment to preserving his achievement and working to make it a model for the entire state.