Remember The Titans: From Segregation to Integration
In the 2000 film Remember The Titans, director Boaz Yakin uses his lens to expose audiences to the biographical sports film set in suburban Virginia high school. The school has been segregated for quite some time, this is until federal mandates forced schools to end segregation and integrate. The film uses sports, specifically football to unite the team through integration. Yakin also explores the use of teamwork, cultural diversity, leadership, and brotherhood.
In Alexandria, Virginia three of its schools, namely T.C. Williams High School, became subjected to racial imbalance due to redlining, another discriminatory practice waged against minorities to withhold financial services and other amenities in their neighborhoods. Thomas Chambliss Williams, former superintendent of T.C. Williams High School was a huge supporter of racial segregation and refused to integrate his high school. It took six years after the Brown decision for T.C. Williams High School to consolidate. Following a series of racially charged incidents and to address the racial tension, the Alexandria City School Board recruited a Black football coach named Herman Boone to assist the Titans white football coach, Bill Yoast in revamping the school’s sports program.
What the school board did not foresee, was Coach Boone improving this team fundamentally and socially. Some may argue that the racial divide in schools was no excuse to force integration, but it is also important to recognize and address the impact segregation and integration had on American culture and examine if forcing schools to integrate was the best solution to eliminate the racial divide. Although Coach Boone was hired to train these athletes to play football, he also taught the team how to navigate the impacts of segregation and integration. By using his military-style approach, Boone undermined the city and the schools’ reluctance to integrate. Boone’s rigorous teaching methods uncompromisingly confronted White and Black resistance. He challenged the Titans way of thinking by having them examine their existing cultural norms and that of others. His methods helped them conquer the racial divide that prevented them from thriving academically and unifying socially. Boone’s efforts to inspire these young athletes paid off, and it led the Titans to a championship.
Although the Titans team and staff initially responded negatively to Boone’s team-building activities, some of the athletes, both Black and White made attempts to bond through music, a cultural custom typically used by African Americans to get through tough times. Acknowledging the continued reluctance, Coach Boone furthered his attempts by using his cultural and professional experiences to integrate his team and rally their support systems. Instituting vigorous physical drills, he strengthened their bodies, and through educational activities and interpersonal exercises, he expanded their minds. In one breakthrough exercise, the Titans can be seen running towards the Gettysburg battlefield where Coach Boone lectured the team about where they were, the significance of the location, and why. (Remember the Titans) Coach Boone’s approaches promoted cultural diversity and inclusivity, and he demanded respect. Many disagreed with Boone’s methods and disapproved of the city appointing a Black man to lead a majority white team, but his aptitude proved to offset the color barrier and be the medicine a city needed to forever change its cultural concepts and social paradigm.
Integration was considered another milestone along the journey to eradicate racial injustice, but Black Americans simply wanted to be treated fairly. The power race had over this Virginia city and the T.C. Williams High School culture threatened to undo the cultural and social progress Americans were striving to make toward racial equality. The blatant disregard of federal policy to integrate also gave White Americans approval to continue to ostracize a class of people because of their race. After the tragic accident which paralyzed white Titans football player, Gerry Bertier, he had a reflective moment with Julius Campbell, one of his Black teammates. Gerry revealed his fear of Julius and the shame of his ignorance about race. Gerry expressed empathy for how he and fellow white Titans had treated Julius and their other teammates, simply because they were Black.
Prior to Boone’s arrival at T.C. Williams, everything the White students learned and adapted to taught them to resist the unknown and to hate anyone who did not look like them. This a radical example of what segregation did to divide Black and White Americans for centuries and how it impacted people of color. Gerry’s epiphany brought him relief and forever bonded him and Julius, but had either of them not met Coach Boone, would they still have instigated segregation? If this Titans football team had not experienced a Black coach, who had experienced segregation himself, and who had not used those experiences as teachable moments to help them overcome their own struggles, it is likely the resistance to integration would have persisted.
Segregation was a form of socialization in American society through the early 1970s. It was the systemic separation of housing, healthcare, education, employment, voting rights, and transportation that subjugated African Americans in every facet of their everyday lives. The disenfranchisement of African Americans began in the 1890s. For many years thereafter, prominent Black leaders, educators, politicians, and advocates fought to introduce racial equality into American society, but without White Americans giving Black Americans reciprocity, their efforts were met with much resistance. Across the United States, signs were used to separate African Americans and Whites. Black Americans were beaten, hung, set on fire, shackled, and murdered during their fight for equal rights, yet the United States Supreme Court maintained its position on separate but equal and upheld the constitutionality of segregation through Plessy v. Ferguson.
An advancement towards equal rights finally came when the Supreme Court unanimously overturned Plessy. In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. (The Impact of Brown v. Board of Education on Student Learning in Public Schools) Although Brown implored inclusivity, much of the Jim Crow South and the Confederate States, including Virginia, refused to integrate schools despite the passing of the desegregation law. Newly created white segregationist groups such as the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties were the leading segregationist organization in Virginia and encouraged white resistance. Many state officials evaded school integration by arguing against the implementation of Brown in court cases, generally filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). One attempt was The Gray Plan, released in November 1955 which sought to “preserve segregation, and yet avoid conflict with the Court.” (From Desegregation to Resegregation: Public Schools in Norfolk, Virginia 1954–2002)
State leaders believed the Supreme Court was interfering in state affairs and those states would pass legislation aimed at redirecting White students to private schools. Despite small numbers of Black students being permitted to transfer to White schools, some states, like Virginia, continued to work relentlessly to make the process complex and cumbersome for African Americans. Many of the Black applicants were rejected and state investigative committees were developed to stop the influence of the NAACP. Brown pledged to offer minorities assurance that their access to education, jobs, voting, travel, housing, healthcare, and public accommodations would be guaranteed. Most African Americans believed Brown would not be as effective as its proponents had hoped. Others wanted to believe the law would be another small triumph in the quest for racial equality, but those promises of civil liberties could not command nor regulate the hearts and minds of discriminators or White supremacists.
Near the end of mass resistance, the federal government had begun to place greater pressure on states to integrate. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare used portions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to threaten southern localities with the loss of federal funding and the Justice Department became involved in lawsuits against intransigent schools. (Is School Desegregation Still a Viable Policy Option?) By the early 1970s, localities formal opposition to school desegregation had ended. As a result of court decisions and the growing role of the federal government in the desegregation process, large numbers of African American students entering formerly all-White schools, and vice versa, had increased. In many cases, compliance was achieved by eliminating the racial composition of schools by simply enrolling students in schools closest to their homes.
Systemically, integration did allow some African Americans more access to resources and better educational opportunities. However, at what expense to White and Black culture? School integration forced White and Black students to converge upon one space, but it did not consolidate their curriculums. Particularly, integration required African Americans to learn more about the White history and to forgo their own. Educational segregation left White and Black students disproportionately educated in cautiously controlled environments where they conducted limited conversations about African American history. The review of African American history, at times, distributed inaccurate information, and the result left White and Black students at a deficit. Unfortunately, the sad reality has been that programs often do not match student needs. (The Impact of Brown v. Board of Education on Student Learning in Public Schools) Many Black students struggled to find literature in majority-white schools documenting African American history and when they did, they could not talk openly about it. Meanwhile, White students likely never noticed the curriculum imbalance and never were encouraged to research Black history on their own.
Additionally, a few more significant socioeconomic problems surfaced. Most notably, by bussing African American students outside of their neighborhoods, their neighborhood schools were left to deteriorate. Some became underfunded and understaffed. Other schools were even closed. It is nearly impossible to desegregate schools effectively without desegregating communities. “Education policy is constrained by housing policy.” (Race and Social Problems) As more and more African American students matriculated towards White schools, their family’s socioeconomic status stagnated. Therefore, there was no opportunity for African American students to relocate so they continued to commute from their neighborhoods. White students began to transfer to private schools, thereby undermining support for urban schools. (Dismantling Desegregation)
There were many positive improvements because of school integration. It produced cognitive and social benefits by highlighting the need for more special education classes. Many African American students in integrated schools were more likely to graduate high school and more likely to enroll in college. In Milwaukee, for example, before the desegregation plan was implemented in 1976, there was an average of 21% white enrollment in minority children’s schools; a decade later, that average had increased to 31%. (Is School Desegregation Still a Viable Policy Option?) Students in integrated schools also began to score higher on aptitude tests. Scholar Peter Bergman of Columbia University stated that “students who are given the opportunity to transfer to majority-white school districts have higher test scores, and over the longer run, an increase in college enrollment by 8 percentage points.” (The Risks and Benefits of School Integration for Participating Students: Evidence from a Randomized Desegregation Program) All improvements increased the likelihood of students in integrated schools gaining lucrative employment opportunities.
Students attending diverse schools resulted in a reduction in racial bias and countered stereotypes. When school settings include multiracial groups, students become more comfortable with people of other races. Being exposed to diversity released multiethnic students from cultural ignorance and promoted positive intergroup relationships. Scholar Davison Douglas contends that mixing pupils confers tangible educational and social benefits on minority children. (Dismantling Desegregation) Multiethnic students forged multidimensional relationships which impacted how they treated people of other ethnicities and how they viewed their cultural circumstances. It also prepared multiracial students to work in a diverse global economy. By simply interacting with people from different backgrounds, integrated schools supported the conditions necessary to promote the core principles for deeper learning.
School is the place where children spend most of their time. It is the place that helps students hone their skills to learn, collaborate, build relationships, and become future leaders. It was also once the place that African Americans could not attend. Black people had to sneak and steal books to teach themselves how to read and write so they could educate other African Americans. Once African Americans were permitted to attend school, they could not attend schools with White students. White Americans dictated if, when, and how African Americans were educated and what they did, and where they could go. To White Americans, integration was an acute threat to their control. For African Americans separate was never equal, but they learned to use it to their advantage.
It is important to recognize racial discrimination and the impact it has on people, their respective environments, and how they are educated. By no means should integration have activated a deepening racial divide. Scholars argue that despite almost twenty-five years of study of the educational and social effects of school desegregation, there is still no definitive study of the relationship between desegregation and educational achievement. (Dismantling Desegregation) Which begs to question, how else do we unify humanity? Boone’s use of his life experiences helped shape this Titans team. So infectiously, it changed their school’s cultural dynamic, and it revolutionized their community. No one, Black or White in this school or in this community during this time would have taken the initiative to implore cultural diversity or would have reevaluated themselves. To unify multiracial, multidenominational, and multidimensional cultures, society must stop feeding the negative nuances associated with colorism, classism, racism, and sexism. Difficult conversations about race must be had, with all ages and all cultures, and we all must act on behalf of each other. Dealing with how to confront and conquer some of these issues was the best-hidden message this film delivered.
Thirty years after the integration of T.C. Williams High School, and fifty years after this film debuted, in 2021, the name of T.C. Williams High School was changed to Alexandria City Public School. “Remember the Titans” was a wonderful tribute to Coach Boone. The film received mixed reviews, but much of the commentary avoided any reference to the racial undertones. The production, a Walt Disney film, toned down the negative connotations related to race and in many ways, it did fail to address what segregation and integration are and why it was happening and how they correlated to Black and White people and their relationships with each other. The Washington Post published an article referencing the film audience rating being adjusted to avoid the use of profanity and derogatory terms referencing African Americans. (Not Just A Football Movie: How ‘Remember the Titans’ Became a Hit and Inspired a Nation) Other critics spent more time pointing out flaws within the characters, critiquing the film as just a sports adaptation, and discussing the film's lack of originality. So, I must wonder if the messages about race and school integration really resonated with older and younger audiences.
By not addressing this framework, younger viewers may have struggled to connect the dots. For example, by explaining what these issues were and how they impacted both races, the younger audience would have had a fundamental understanding about why Coach Boone struggled to cultivate relationships with his White students and colleagues, and why the Titans struggled in their relationships with each other. Allowing the opportunity for a younger audience to draw their own conclusions, may have alluded to this being a typical film about playing football. The director also opted to restrict the level of violence in the movie to be more sensitive to younger audiences. With respect to that, the most egregious incident in the movie was when a brick was thrown through his family’s home window. Certainly, these occurrences, like many others in the movie, reminded most older African Americans about what discrimination did to them and their culture, but this film really did not offer much to race relations or the impacts of school integration in the 20th century.
For African Americans, the redundancy of these films often manages to highlight unresolved pain and emphasizes a sense of anger about things other cultures never experienced and can never understand. Particularly when the expectation is that the revelation serves as enlightenment and the acknowledgment should make Black culture proud. However, the undercut somewhat adds to the complexities of the Black plight and further obscures a divisive nation that has been struggling with racial inequality for decades. Segregation and integration were traumatic experiences for African Americans. Both were social constructs that have left wounds so deep, it has destroyed Black culture in such a way that recovery has been somewhat incomprehensible. What happened to African Americans during that period in American history, and the influence it had on all Americans should never be marginalized.
Additional Video Resource
Works Cited
Remember The Titans. Directed by Boaz Yakin, Walt Disney Pictures 2000. Swank Digital Video Streaming Service.
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