Focusing on the city of Atlanta from 1972 to 2012, Halting White Flight explores the neighborhood-based movement to halt white flight from the city’s public schools. While the current historiography traces the origins of modern conservatism to white families’ abandonment of the public schools and the city following court-ordered desegregation, this dissertation presents a different narrative of white flight. As thousands of white families fled the city for the suburbs and private schools, a small, core group of white mothers, who were southerners returning from college or more often migrants to the South, founded three organizations in the late seventies: the Northside Atlanta Parents for Public Schools, the Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools, and Atlanta Parents and Public Linked for Education. By linking their commitment to integration and vision of public education to the future economic growth and revitalization of the city’s neighborhoods, these mothers organized campaigns that transformed three generations’ understanding of race and community and developed an entirely new type of community activism.

Focusing on the city of Atlanta from 1972 to 2012, Halting White Flight explores the neighborhood-based movement to halt white flight from the city’s public schools. While the current historiography traces the origins of modern conservatism to white families’ abandonment of the public schools and the city following court-ordered desegregation, this dissertation presents a different narrative of white flight. As thousands of white families fled the city for the suburbs and private schools, a small, core group of white mothers, who were southerners returning from college or more often migrants to the South, founded three organizations in the late seventies: the Northside Atlanta Parents for Public Schools, the Council of Intown Neighborhoods and Schools, and Atlanta Parents and Public Linked for Education. By linking their commitment to integration and vision of public education to the future economic growth and revitalization of the city’s neighborhoods, these mothers organized campaigns that transformed three generations’ understanding of race and community and developed an entirely new type of community activism.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:36:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Conselho Popular de Vitoria.pdf: 424320 bytes, checksum: 35ad75f50e1fc5dd7deeb968ced181fb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-04-27 / O trabalho é um estudo de caso sobre o Conselho Popular de Vitória (CPV) organização representativa das associações de moradores do município de Vitória de sua fundação, em 1986, até 2004. Ancorado em autores que estudaram a participação política da sociedade civil nas décadas de 80 e 90 o objetivo é empreender uma análise que especifique o perfil de atuação deste movimento em termos de interesses e demandas, do seu papel junto aos movimentos de bairro que representa e da sua relação com o poder municipal. A estratégia de apreensão do objeto de estudo deu-se pela metodologia qualitativa que possibilita a compreensão de fenômenos, fatos e procedimentos particulares de pequenos grupos. O resultado da pesquisa revelou que o CPV, ao longo da sua trajetória, sofreu modificações no seu perfil de atuação. Se nos anos 80 apresentou uma postura mais independente na relação com o poder público, nos anos 90 assume uma posição mais próxima ao governo, fortalecida pelo processo de abertura e institucionalização dos canais de participação. Contudo, essa postura levaria ao longo dos anos a um padrão de relação extremamente frágil com o poder público e entidades dos movimentos de bairro, visto que, assumindo uma postura de parceiro e legitimador das ações do poder público, tem deixado de ser um operador das demandas da sociedade civil e se transformado em agente cooperador do poder público. / This paper is a case study about the CPV (Vitória Popular Council) organization that represents the resident associations in the city of Vitória from its foundation and in 1986 to 2004. Based on authors who studied the political participation of civil societies in the 1980s and 90s, the aim is to perform an analysis to specify the acting profile of this movement in terms of interest and demand; its role in the movements of the neighborhoods it represents and its relation with the city government. The study strategy adopted qualitative methodology, which allows understanding particular phenomena, facts and procedures of small groups. Results showed that CPV, throughout its history, has changed its acting focus. If in the 80s the movement had a more independent position towards the city government, in the 90s it took a position closer to the government, strengthened by the opening process and institutionalization of channels of participation. Nevertheless, this posture would lead to an extremely fragile relation with the government and neighborhood entities, throughout the years. Since the CPV has had a position of government s partner and legitimator of actions, it has quit being an operator of the civil society s demands and become a government collaborator.