title:  Alabama County Succeeds In Re-Instituting School Segregation
text: The Republican-controlled southern states have done very little in recent years to scale back the impact of America s history of racism, from stubbornly supporting the Confederate flag on government property to retorting  All Lives Matter  to the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as dismissing all concerns posed by institutional, systemic, and overt racism prevalent throughout the country.In Sumter County, Alabama, a quarter of the county s children are white, but not a single one of them attends a public school. A report by Dan Carsen of a local NPR affiliate on the county s school district shows the schools are in terrible shape due to neglect and lack of funding precipitated by school segregation. They live in this county, but they will not send their children to the schools in this county,  Sumter School County Board Member Julene Delaine told Dan Carsen in an interview.  Instead, many white families send their kids to a local private academy or outside the area.  We shop in the same place. We eat at the same restaurant. So why can t our kids go to school together? Carsen also reported that while other states provide extra funding to low income school districts, Alabama does not. The state also refuses to increase taxes to compensate for the needed income. Alabama s Republican Governor, Robert Bentley, has gained a notorious reputation for corruption and abuse. He has recently been accused of having an affair with a political aide, increasing pay of his staff substantially despite the state s budget concerns after he blocked a minimum wage increase in the city of Birmingham, and is using over $1 million in taxpayer money to remodel a second Governor s mansion.In contrast to Sumter County s public schools, not a single person of color can be found in photos of Sumter County s  private school, Sumter Academy. The school s website also touts that it is a Christian based learning environment. Under the veil of emphasizing privatization over government ownership and regulation, the Christian Right has been able to succeed in inoculating themselves from having to adhere to federal laws protecting the rights of black people and other marginalized groups.Featured image courtesy of Flickr