South Carolina Independent School Association

The South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) is a school accrediting organization. It was founded in South Carolina in 1965 to legitimize segregation academies.[1][2]

History

SCISA was founded on August 10, 1965 with seven member schools[3] and provided organizational support to new segregation academies similar to that provided by White Citizens Councils in Mississippi, and had already founded 26 segregation academies by the spring of 1966.[2] Its first executive director was Tom Turnipseed.[4] Turnipseed admitted that SCISA was founded to support a white-only education system. "We denied it had anything to do with integration, but it did. It was fear. It was racism."[2][5] SCISA was founded as a "haven for segregation academies" but by 1990, according to then executive director Larry Watt, the "great majority" of SCISA's then 70 member schools were no longer segregated by race.[6] Another founder, T.E. Wannamaker also stated that the organization was a response to mass integration and that "Many (Negroes) are little more than field hands."[7]

Athletics

SCISA governs student athletics for its member institutions.

Structure

SCISA is structured into 3 divisions, based on school population and size of teams. The levels, from smallest population to largest, are A, AA, and AAA. A and AA sports are further split into 2 regions each, while AAA competes without region differences.

References
  1. Tom Turnipseed (January 18, 2009). "King Day at the Dome: Cotton is King no more". The State. I was the first executive director of the S.C. Independent School Association, formed in 1965 by seven private schools that wanted to share resources, establish more private schools and avoid public-school desegregation. My job was to help local groups of white parents organize private schools so their children would not attend schools desegregated by federal courts. I was a grassroots organizer and helped establish 30 private, segregated academies from 1965 to 1967, mostly in the area now known as the Corridor of Shame.(subscription required)
  2. https://getd.libs.uga.edu/pdfs/blair_monica_k_201505_ma.pdf
  3. Gloria Ladson-Billings (October 2004). "Landing on the Wrong Note: The Price We Paid for Brown". Educational Researcher. 33 (7): 3–13. doi:10.3102/0013189x033007003. JSTOR 3700092.(subscription required)
  4. Winfred B. Moore, Jr.; Orville Vernon Burton (15 September 2008). Toward the Meeting of the Waters: Currents in the Civil Rights Movement of South Carolina During the Twentieth Century. Univ of South Carolina Press. p. 412. ISBN 978-1-57003-755-9. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  5. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2005/03/21/deja-vu-parents-charge-tuition-grants-and-choice-education
  6. John Egerton (1991). Shades of Gray: Dispatches from the Modern South. LSU Press. pp. 245–6. ISBN 978-0-8071-1705-7. Retrieved 6 January 2013.
  7. Matthews, Jay (January 24, 2020). "A provocative argument on segregation, school choice and shared language". Washington Post. Retrieved 11 October 2020.

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.