Surprise, surprise…  They’re putting blacks in the back of the bus again here in America…

Black students ordered to give up seats to whites

COUSHATTA — Nine black children attending Red River Elementary School were directed last week to the back of the school bus by a white driver who designated the front seats for white children.

The situation has outraged relatives of the black children who have filed a complaint with school officials.

Superintendent Kay Easley will meet with the family members in her office this morning.

…

Easley would not comment much on the allegations Wednesday, saying it is a personnel issue. She acknowledged that she has investigated the claim. And she confirmed that the bus driver did not run her route Wednesday, nor would she today.

Asked if the driver would work for the rest of the year, Easley said, "I’m not going to answer the questions. "You’re getting all that you’re going to get from me. I’m sorry."

…

After Richmond and Williams [the parents of the children] filed complaints with the School Board, Transportation Supervisor Jerry Carlisle asked Davis to make seat assignments for her passengers, Sessoms [a relative] said.

"But she still assigned the black children to the back of the bus," she added.

And the nine children had to share only two seats, meaning the older children had to hold the younger ones in their laps.

A new solution reached Monday by School Board officials has a black bus driver driving across town to pick up the nine black children.

Dig it.  The new solution was to kick the black kids off the white lady’s bus altogether. 

It’s Louisiana and I’m not surprised.  I’ve driven from one end of this country to the other and Louisiana has always stood out in my remembrance for the level of openly in-your-face white racism I saw while I was there.  It’s a problem everywhere, but in Louisiana it was like stepping into a time warp, not just in terms of how often you saw it, but how they all seemed to accept it as a fact of life.  New Orleans was the exception to that.  Drive across the causeway into Covington and north and there might as well have never been a civil rights movement.  But in New Orleans itself, at least the parts I explored, you didn’t see that.  And that’s almost certainly why New Orleans is still a devastated ruin.  I’m convinced the rest of Louisiana was glad to see it go.