| The hegemony perpetuated by the St. Joseph school district remained entrenched within the social structures and consciousness of the black community until the time of desegregation as the result of two key factors. First, public discourses of accommodation and paternalism obfuscated racism making it difficult for the black community to name obstacles that impeded their progress. Second, hegemonic control was reinforced by social and economic structures within the black community that perpetuated supporting discourses. These restrictive discourses originated in three interlocking factors: (a) a small black population in which everyone knew everyone else through work, church, or neighborhoods; (b) a closed community in which families had intermarried for decades, creating common family perspectives; and (c) dependence upon the good will of well-to-do white families in order to keep jobs that were seen as lucrative by black standards. However, there was a dialectic of freedom situated within desegregation in St. Joseph. In contrast with the massive resistance raised by the South against desegregation and the struggles such as those played out at Central High School in Little Rock, the quiet desegregation of St. Joseph opened a space for the assimilation of black students into more of the dominant culture. Rather than continuing hegemonic control over ways of thinking and talking within the black community, desegregation raised the curtain of segregation that had restricted them. Black children found they could compete favorably against white children; became aware of more options available to them than they had ever imagined, including access to public facilities and services; and benefited from raised aspirations as they learned to produce within a dominant society driven by meritocracy. These advances were not apprehended without loss, however, as black teachers lost status and rank, the black community lost much of its arts, and past accomplishments were no longer recognized and honored. Desegregation in St. Joseph was smooth since it was implemented, without resistance, as an assimilation of black students into existing white structures rather than a move across a mutual border with whites into the possibilities of true integration. |