Forced Busing in Lansing, Michigan

This story is one of hundreds Colin Flaherty planned to publish in a book before his death. American Renaissance will post one a week.

I went to junior high school in Lansing, Michigan in the early 1970s when forced busing had just started. There had never been any problems in my neighborhood elementary school. It was mostly white with a few minorities. We all got along fine. But when the black students came to my middle school, they would often come to school carrying bats, chains, and golf clubs. I was terrified whenever I saw a big group of them. One time, my brother and his friend had to jump out a window to escape a riot. When my white friends and I walked down the hall, the black girls (who didn’t even know us) would walk behind us and punch us hard in the back over and over again. We never said anything, we were too afraid. The teachers seemed to either be afraid or indifferent to do anything about it. There was a black girl who threatened to beat me up everyday if I didn’t give her my lunch money. She eventually stole my purse, got caught, and was expelled.

I never saw whites abusing blacks, but the black students often bullied and harassed the whites. It’s so painful to not be able to share my story without being denounced and silenced with the inevitable “racist” accusation. I was not the only one this happened to. Racial violence in the 1960s and 1970s was not only white on black. I hope one someone can publish a book about what white school children went through during the so-called “civil rights movement.”