The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind” Conservatism

Abstract

Between 1969 and 1974, the volatile conflict over court-ordered busing in Charlotte, North Carolina, revealed the fusion of racial and class attitudes in the political ideology of the “Silent Majority.” A powerful antibusing movement based in Charlotte’s white-collar suburbs defended neighborhood schools through a color-blind discourse that evaded the historical roots of residential segregation and shaped the legal stance of the Nixon administration. Despite the grassroots revolt of this Silent Majority, Charlotte ultimately achieved one of the most racially integrated school systems in the nation because of a metropolitan remedy that included the suburbs in a landmark two-way busing plan. This case study of suburban political mobilization challenges the distinction between de jure segregation in the South and de facto segregation in the North and argues that the color-blind populism in metropolitan Charlotte helped to forge a national suburban blueprint of consumer rights, residential privileges, and middle-class racial innocence.