DEMOGRAPHIC CORRELATES OF BORDER-STATE DESEGREGATION.

The border-states of Missouri and Kentucky currently present a picture of incomplete racial desegregation of the public schools. Roughly 64 percent of the counties with Negroes in each of these states had started or had plans by May 1957 for some racial integration in education. Questions immediately arise as to the possible differences between desegregating counties and those maintaining complete segregation. The present paper relates this scattered design of segregated and integrated counties to three demographic variables. Two principal factors have been held by educators and social scientists as crucial in school integration—urbanism and Negro ratio. A third demographic variable, economic prosperity, is closely related to urbanism and Negro ratio and often cited as independently important in race relations. The mixed pattern of acceptance of public school integration is in important part a function of a number of demographic factors. Urbanism and economic prosperity appear to be crucial variables. All 24 of the predominantly urban counties in the two states are desegregating, and even the partly urban counties are more often desegregating than totally rural counties.