Apartheid. USA 1988

June 15, 1987:

More than 145 000 students attend public schools in Manhattan. Fewer than 10 percent of them are non-Hispanic whites. But, among the 15 000 students enrolled in the borough's prestigious private schools, more than 80 percent are white. In the Kindergarten and first-grade classes, the figure is more than 90 percent. ‘If the school claims it's preparing them for the world, they cannot do so in an all white classroom,’ Angela Flemister said, who set up a program called ‘Early Steps’. She was hired by the Independent Schools Admissions Association to recruit more black and Hispanic youngsters for kindergarten and first grade. ‘Some schools,’ Miss Flemister said, ‘want more diversity which means more children from the Westside, or more who are Jewish.’ This year, of the 2 485 kindergarten and first-grade students in 37 schools who participate in the Early Steps program, 202 were black or Hispanic for the first time. Next September classes will include an additional 15 pupils referred by Early Steps.^115.

Descendants of black property owners who were forced out of Forsyth County, Georgia in 1912 are unlikely to have their ancestors' land restored to them in Georgia Courts, according to the State Attorney-General, Michael J Bowers. ‘Legal difficulties and a lapse of 75 years weigh against the continued viability of any potential claim by a former black owner or his representative,’ he said. Mr Bowers also cited census data showing 1 098 black residents in 1910 and only 30 blacks in 1920. Even today, county officials say they

115. The New York Times, from a report by Sam Roberts 130 manscript

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know of no black residents in the county of 38 500 people about 40 miles outside Atlanta, Georgia.^116.

116. The New York Times, special report from Atlanta, Georgia