Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to Open on King Holiday

Jan 16, 2011
Michael Streich

CMS to Hold Classes on King Holiday - Patrick Schneider/Courtest Charlotte C-of-C image

Snow day school closures have prompted some school districts like Charlotte, North Carolina to hold classes on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s federal holiday.

On January 13, 2011, Eric Davis, School Board Chairman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina, unleashed cries of protest in the community by announcing that schools would be open on Monday, January 17 which is also the federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Southern school districts below the North Carolina Piedmont rarely experience significant winter weather necessitating school closures for several days. The recent early January storm, however, closed many area schools for three to fours days. School officials are now scrambling to make up the missing days.

Balancing Education with the Memory of Dr. King

Although the Charlotte NAACP vigorously opposes the school board’s decision, Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, who is black, notes the achievement gap and sides with the board’s decision. Foxx told the Charlotte Observer (January 15, 2011) that it was difficult to agree with the NAACP protest “…given the challenges so many young people are facing…” [in the schools].

How would Dr. King want his legacy remembered? As a student at Morehouse College in 1947, he wrote a brief essay on The Purpose of Education. According to King, “Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.”

African Americans are facing a particularly difficult period in public education within some school districts. The Wake County School Board, also in North Carolina has come under fire for approving a plan that will promote neighborhood schools, an idea critics say is nothing more than an attempt to re-segregate the public schools.

North Carolina was one of the first regions in the South to integrate schools through busing following the 1971 case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The balance between a holiday honoring Dr. King and a day of classroom instruction is delicate, given the history of education in the South as it impacted African American children.

Civil Rights in the South and the Focus on Education

In the 1964 case Griffin v. County Board of Prince Edward County Justice Hugo Black wrote that, “The time for mere 'deliberate speed’ has run out.” The case arose when the county schools closed for several years after financial subsidies were cut. It was very clear at the time that the action was in response to school integration efforts. In the years 1964 and 1965 only two percent of all Southern African Americans attended integrated public schools.

Dr. King wrote that, “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” Opening the schools on the King holiday is, for some districts, the only option in order to comply with state laws governing instructional time. A large system like that in Charlotte may not be able to hold Saturday classes as smaller, rural districts are doing.

Those kinds of decisions impact character, one of the educational goals Dr. King identifies. The Civil Rights battle for education is on-going and past victories may need to be revisited, as in Wake County, North Carolina. The message and symbolism in sending children to school this January 17, given the unique circumstances, should be the greatest act of respect in honoring Dr. King: education liberates.

From his earliest days as a student, Dr. King valued education and viewed it as a primary step toward equality and morals. The arguments for neighborhood and magnet schools must never detract from the universal goal of superb educational opportunities for all children. History and human nature dictates that integration is the only way to ensure Dr. King's view of a "broad education." The NAACP boycott of classes in Charlotte on January 17, 2011 does not serve that universal goal.