White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

by Kevin M. Kruse

Practically speaking, this meant working along segregated lines. “There are really two real estate markets—one Negro and one white,” the WSMDC conceded in 1958. This resulted not from any public policy of segregation, the committee claimed, but rather from private preferences. According to the WSMDC’s technical adviser, Robert Stuart, “the decisions of thousands of individual buyers and sellers of property exercising their constitutional rights [are what] determines whether a particular area is white or Negro.” From its own perspective, the WSMDC merely sought to clear up confusion and prevent violence. When committee members spoke of “determining” a neighborhood’s racial status, they thought of themselves as trying to discover an objective truth, whether a neighborhood was solidly white or surely becoming black. But more often than not, WSMDC actions “determined” a neighborhood’s status in quite another sense. Its pronouncements—this area will stay white, that section is a lost cause—attached an air of certainty to otherwise unpredictable situations. In many cases, WSMDC predictions became self-fulfilling prophecies.