Where do Upper to Middle class black people live in Birmingham, AL? (Hoover: school, living)

[pennquaker09]

Originally Posted by lisawj

I've selected a home in the 35344 area code - my daughter will attend Bumpus Middle School. I am looking forward to the move. It is a great house. I noticed the demographics in that area code seemed to be less diverse (2006 info) and although I am use to being around a not so diverse area - being from Seattle - and now a neighborhood in Charlotte, NC. yet and still I am nervous. Intellectually, I know that everywhere there is racism, etc. - and that Birmingham - if not Hoover is a diverse area. Yet and still, I am still slightly nervous. Truthfully, I think it is the stereotypical perpections that affect my emotionally driven concerns. I want to simply live in peace and I hope my accepting this job and moving will turn out fabulous. I ever so appreciate the feedback from everyone - it meant so very much. And it helped bunches.

I didn't attend middle school in Hoover, but I did go to high school there. I can assure you that your daughter won't have any problems. Will there be a lot of African American families living around you? Probably not, but I'm sure she will still have friends.

[hexkaster]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Actually, your information about Mountain Brook is utterly wrong. No students are bussed into the Mountain Brook school system. The black students who are there are the children of high-income professionals, just like the white students. In fact, one of the families lives down the street from us, having moved here three years ago from out west. At a neighborhood party, she and I had a conversation about the challenges of being in an almost entirely-white school system. She said, "Really, we haven't had the first problem."

Not bussed in?
Well as for Vestavia....
In Fall 2006, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education moved to petition the federal government to end the required desegregation busing

Desegregation busing in the United States is the practice of attempting to integrate schools by assigning students to schools based primarily on race, rather than geographic proximity....
of predominantly black students from the Shannon/Oxmoor Valley area due to overcrowding. The Unitary Status court settlement was federally approved in July 2007.

Yep the highschool was REQUIRED to bus in students from another part of town based soley on their race.


The Mountain Brook comments were made based on observations, many conversations, and working there over the years. A former co-worker of mine told me a story about two fellows who played on the mountain brook football team and they had an apartment paid for by parents of some other players so they could play football for the high school.

I wouldn't say they were utterly wrong. Maybe I just should have posted all of this together.

[hexkaster]

Busing to desegregate the city of Birmingham Ala., a focal point of many hard-fought struggles in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, is now the center of a court battle.
In 1970, a federal court ordered the city of Birmingham to implement a busing plan to desegregate its schools. Black


[RIGHT]










[/RIGHT]
children from Birmingham were to be bused to schools in Vestavia Hills, a predominantly white, affluent suburb of Birmingham. White children in Vestavia Hills were to be bused to predominantly Black schools in Birmingham.

In a racist attempt to avoid sending its children to Black-majority schools in Birmingham, Vestavia Hills established its own school system. However, at the time, a federal judge ruled that the 99 percent-white school system had to accept children from a designated portion of neighboring Oxmoor Valley, a working-class, African American neighborhood nearby.
Vestavia Hills is now requesting that a federal judge grant it "unitary status." It wants the judge to give it the authority to act as its own regulator, thereby freeing it from court supervision and court obligations to desegregate. (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 6)
Vestavia Hills officials argue that the issue is one of overcrowding. Jamie Blair, superintendent of Vestavia Hills schools, told the LA Times that, in the last four years, the number of Oxmoor students in the district has risen from 75 to 132. "Simply put, it’s an overcrowding issue," Blair stated.
But Theodore Lawson, an attorney who lives in Oxmoor valley, countered: "The only effort to relieve overcrowding has been to remove 132 black students from the school system."
The request is specifically states that Vestavia Hills would continue educating the 132 Black students currently in their school, Oxmoor High, as well as their siblings, but that all other Black students would attend Birmingham schools.
Vestavia Hills is one of the most exclusively white areas of Jefferson County, the county in which Birmingham is located. According to the 2000 census, Vestavia Hills is 94 percent white and has a median income of $70,000.

Birmingham, in stark contrast, has only a 24 percent white population and a median income of $26,000. The majority of the city’s population is Black. Only 5 percent of the students in Birmingham schools are white. **website from where this was taken is available upon request.**

[jakabedy]

Hex -

I posted this earlier in the thread and you seem to have missed it:

"hexcaster -- are you referring to Vestavia? If so, you're talking about the kids who live in the "historically black" Oxmoor Valley area just over the mountain from Vestavia. That area is zoned either Birmingham or Jefferson County. For years there was a consent decree that had those kids attending Vestavia. But within the last couple years I believe there was a resolution of some kind made to phase that out so that only current enrollees under that decree and their siblings will go to Vestavia."

_______________

Mountain Brook was not involved in that, as I think you know, or you wouldn't have come back with the post about athletes. Your MB reference now appears to be limited to kids who DID live there -- so it has nothing to do with "inflated" numbers. As for families moving to get their kids into more prominent sports programs -- it happens. It's not right when someone else pays for it, but it happens. Now, if the kid really was a top college prospect but stuck in a small school with a non-competitive sports program where he/she was likely to see few recruiters, I would think the parent would want to get him or her into a prominent, large program. I would think the choice would be more along the lines of Hoover rather than MB, but far be it for me to second-guess that family's choices.

FWIW, I am not a MB resident nor do I have any particular affinity for the place. I just want to make sure the right info gets out there.

[1984vt]

Yes, Vestavia is trying to compete with Mountain Brook and maintain a nearly "pure" school. Mountain Brook declining to take the Liberty Park area was very telling - turned down all those tax dollars because they were frightened of an integration reform that never happened!

[lisawj]

Well, I moved and in truth I am suprised. It has been about 4 days in - I moved in and the neighborhood is so quiet but nice. My daughter starts school on Monday. I am close to work and the commute so far hasn't been jarring. I met a few neighbors and they are very nice folk. I am fully aware that what you present is what matters most - being true to self and offering a kind handshake and smile goes a long way. I will say that threestep's uneasiness of my seeking middle class surroundings is reasonable - but for me, I wanted to live in a area that is conducive to my current lifestyle. No harm or foul. Again, thanks for everyone that offered words of encouragement. It meant bunches and all you were right.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by lisawj

Well, I moved and in truth I am suprised. It has been about 4 days in - I moved in and the neighborhood is so quiet but nice. My daughter starts school on Monday. I am close to work and the commute so far hasn't been jarring. I met a few neighbors and they are very nice folk. I am fully aware that what you present is what matters most - being true to self and offering a kind handshake and smile goes a long way. I will say that threestep's uneasiness of my seeking middle class surroundings is reasonable - but for me, I wanted to live in a area that is conducive to my current lifestyle. No harm or foul. Again, thanks for everyone that offered words of encouragement. It meant bunches and all you were right.

Well, we're so glad that your initial impressions were good ones. Please satisfy our curiosity and tell us where you decided. And please keep participating in the board. We like to have new voices around here. A lot of people come here for information, then are never heard from again.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by hexkaster

Not bussed in?
Well as for Vestavia....
In Fall 2006, the Vestavia Hills Board of Education moved to petition the federal government to end the required desegregation busing

Desegregation busing in the United States is the practice of attempting to integrate schools by assigning students to schools based primarily on race, rather than geographic proximity....
of predominantly black students from the Shannon/Oxmoor Valley area due to overcrowding. The Unitary Status court settlement was federally approved in July 2007.

Yep the highschool was REQUIRED to bus in students from another part of town based soley on their race.


The Mountain Brook comments were made based on observations, many conversations, and working there over the years. A former co-worker of mine told me a story about two fellows who played on the mountain brook football team and they had an apartment paid for by parents of some other players so they could play football for the high school.

I wouldn't say they were utterly wrong. Maybe I just should have posted all of this together.

Oh. The friend of a friend of a hairdresser whose daughter works for a person who works in a sporting good store that sells equipment to all the area high school teams? Right.

[lisawj]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Well, we're so glad that your initial impressions were good ones. Please satisfy our curiosity and tell us where you decided. And please keep participating in the board. We like to have new voices around here. A lot of people come here for information, then are never heard from again.

I ended up moving to Hoover - near the Galleria in a real attractive house - as I said before in a quaint and quiet house. It takes me about 12 minutes to get to work in Pelham and most of it is in minimal traffic. I hope to like it here.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

Living in Hoover and working in Pelham makes your commute much easier than if it was the other way around.