BSA and race

[Bob White]

In fact TwoCub further research would help you to discover that BSA units, even in the deep south, especially in the rural areas were segregated decades before and that by the the late 1960s the number of black youth in scouting was equally proportionate to the number of white scouts according to population, and most were in integrated troops.

 

Too much of this thread is based on idividuals with strong opinions but few facts, who are guessing at what the history of the program was without any experience or bothering to research it.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Bob White writes:

Too much of this thread is based on idividuals with strong opinions but few facts, who are guessing at what the history of the program was without any experience or bothering to research it.

 

Hmm, kind of reminds me of the time you said:

The city government of Chicago was a charter organization of a scout unit? I don't think so.

 

When the city of Chicago WAS the charter partner for 28 BSA units, and agreed to terminate all of them as part of an out-of-court settlement with the ACLU in 1998. One week later, the BSA announced that Explorers was being moved into Learning for Life.

http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/poloncarz-top.html

[packsaddle]

NJCubscouter, I am going to make a leap of faith and assume that one of the responses on this topic that you read in another thread was mine.

 

I now wish to inform you (and anyone else) that when I mentioned hate-speech by volunteer leaders and professionals, this was not uniquely aimed at persons of African origin (or any other dark skin color for which the n-word was attached to some prefix like wood- or sand-). Such speech at different times was also directed at Jews (I still can't tell the difference somehow, but I can't seem to spot gays or atheists either). There was a special fervor against miscegenation (also Biblically based: persons practicing this acted almost as if it wasn't unnatural, and it was a long time before I could spell it). Also communists (I wasn't sure how to spot one of these until college, then I took an economics course - they're the ones, I think, we're not supposed to sell rope to for some reason). And finally (you might want to sit down for this one)...Catholics (Kennedy backlash, I assume - anyway they, you know, drank alcohol in church).

 

I just wanted to note that prejudice can be painted with a broad brush, usually held firmly by the hand of ignorance.

We can argue about whether BSA led or trailed...but either way it definitely has improved.

[Twocubdad]

Yes, Bob, I'll agree with you that there were integrated councils and units prior to 1974. I'll take your word for it that there were integrated units all the way back to 1911. But are you saying that all BSA programs during that time were integrated? Could you really go to any Scout camp and see black Scouts swimming and eating along side white Scouts? Will you agree that BSA tolerated racially segregrated units up until '74?

 

I think where you are loosing some of us here is when you try to draw the distinction between BSA as a national program being integrated because they allowed members of all races while ignoring the fact that many of those members were in strictly segrated units. That's an extremely narrow definition of integrated. That would be like the Montgomery Board of Education claiming that their school system was integrated all along because it had both black and white schools.

 

I'm really not trying to argue the point you think I am. I was a Scout in '74 and remember taking quite a bit of pride in the fact that I was a member of an organization that promoted racial equality. Although my hometown had a very small black community, we had black Scouts in our troop and we all did what we could to make them feel welcome.

 

I don't particularly see it as a stain that through the first half of its history BSA reflected the predominant societial views on race. But neither do I see it as an organization that was out front or ahead of its time in promoting equality.

[Bob White]

I think it is a vitally important distinction Twocub when you realize that most organizations did not allow memberships other than white. And although there were segregated troops primarily in the South, integrated troops did exist. And by the 1960s many troops were integrated.

 

The BSA has always given units great altitude in determining their own membership based on the their specific goals and needs, allowing them to be stricter than the BSA regulations but not less restrictive.

 

The fact that integrated units existed at a very early time shows that the BSA did not block integration. Could they have been more aggressive. Perhaps, but it's easy to live in todays age and look back and say that things could have been better. Today you do not have the same climate that existed then. Racial segregation was a volatile and complicated issue. Considering the strides made at this time in race relations by the BSA they did an amazing job of quietly helping to spread integration and more importantly improve communications and understanding by bringing races together in the friendly arena of scouting.

 

This issue of integration from decades ago is a smoke screen being used to attack the BSA on other forms of segregation. The BSA recognized from the onset that racial integration was in keeping with the values of the program and never took steps to hinder the continued growth of membership from a wide variety of heritages.

 

But to compare this with the BSA's discrimination of atheists or avowed homosexuals would be a mistake. Those areas are in conflict with the methods and aims of scouting and the BSA has made that abundantly clear.(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Hunt]

Two questions for you, Bob:

 

1. Is it true that in 1974 BSA adopted a policy of not allowing units to discriminate on race?

 

2. Do you think that racial discrimination was ever consistent with the methods and aims of Scouting?

 

The reason I started this thread was that the issue of what BSA did about race and when gets bandied about in many of these discussions, and I realized that I didn't have an understanding of the facts. I still don't--I found nothing on the internet about this 1974 agreement with NAACP--does anybody have access to actual facts?

[Bob White]

1)What happened in 1974 was that he NAACP brought suit against the Mormon church and the BSA to get the Mormon church to stop discriminating based on race. Black Scouts were allowed membership but under the rules of the church could not hold certain church offices and so could not advance the same as white scouts.

 

The LDS church changed their position before the case went to trial and all parties; The LDS Church, the BSA, and the NAACP, signed a document stating that the discrimination no longer existed..

 

So while yes there was a document signed in 1974, it was not an agreement between the NAACP and the BSA for the BSA to stop discriminating, since that was not the issue. It was an agreement that the racial discrimination in the LDS church as related to Scouting had ended.

 

2) No, and I think considering the scocial and political complexity of the topic that the BSA did everything it could to serve all youth regardless of race, and did far more than other organizations to work for racial equality.

[Hunt]

OK, but was there some point in time when BSA announced as an official policy that no unit could discriminate on the basis of race? Or was there a time when such a policy began to be enforced? I suppose it's possible that there was always such a policy, that it wasn't enforced in earlier days, and that it became a non-issue as explicitly discriminatory units disappeard. I am assuming, of course, that such a policy is in place now.

[KoreaScouter]

I can't comment on the LDS angle, because I know very little about it. I can look at my experience as a Scout in an urban area in the late '60s - early 70's and try to size up what I saw.

 

I think the extent to which units were segregated then was not based on any policy, except the policy that units are chartered to community organizations. My Troop was chartered to our Catholic church in a 100% Polish neighborhood. Guess what? All white. A mile away, where my cousins lived, their Troop was chartered to the public elementary school. That one was about half white, most of the remainder black, and a few hispanic -- just like the neighborhood. Another half mile past there was a Troop chartered to an AME church -- 100% black members, just like the neighborhood.

 

Were there segregated units? Sure. Was it a result of some sinister plot? Of course not. We went to Scouts at the closest Troop, within walking distance to the house. My guess is that in general, unit demographic makeup matches pretty closely the demographic makeup of the area it's located in -- nobody I knew commuted across town to go to Scouts. It's probably as true now as it was when I was a youth. As neighborhoods get more integrated, so do our units. It's certainly true everywhere I've been as an adult.

 

KS