McComb provides a close-up example of the stark disparities that remain in the educational performance of blacks and whites in Mississippi schools, which haven’t outgrown a legacy of segregation and racism. One glaring example: In 2014, black students in Mississippi averaged just 16.5 on the ACT, compared with 20.8 for white students. The national average for all test takers last year was 21.
Mississippi’s black boys are also overrepresented in special education and are less likely to take college-level Advanced Placement tests. The state’s persistent disparities are symptomatic of a national problem recognized by President Barack Obama, who in 2014 launched his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which aims to improve outcomes for boys and young men of color.
In McComb, history has strongly influenced how schools serve blacks. The Civil Rights Movement and the end of legally sanctioned segregation met bitter and violent resistance from white groups in the county.
During a two-month period in the early 1960s, there was so much incendiary violence against civil rights groups that McComb became known as “the bombing capital of the world.” More than 50 years later, the city’s five public schools remain segregated. Of the 2,743 students, 89.25 percent are black; just 8.6 percent are white. Meanwhile, the city itself is 31 percent white and 66 percent black, according to U.S. census data.
Many white parents send their children to the predominantly white North Pike School District, even though they live in McComb, said Ellis, the McComb school superintendent. North Pike is 66 percent white and 32 percent black. Other white families choose Parklane Academy, a private, predominately white K-12 Christian School, he said. North Pike’s 2013 graduation rate of 76 percent is almost two points higher than the state average and 10 points higher than McComb’s.
“There has been an out-migration of the haves,” Ellis said. “Everybody who thinks that another school system, because of the population they serve, can provide a better education than the McComb School District, they do that.”