An Army of Normal Folks - When I Learned About "Church Schools"

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

For Shop Talk, Coach Bill tells the story of learning about "church schools" from his football players. It's a sad history that is not well known. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal Folks, Shop Talk number 53. Welcome into the shop. I was a little aggressive, but I like it. Well, if George was here, I wouldn't have to do it anymore. You can't mention him every shop talk, it's going to get weird. I don't care, I love George, he's hilarious, he's cute as he can be, I don't know where he came from. So anyway, this shop talk is Church Schools.

What? Church Schools? It's a term I learned my first or second year at Manassas. And the phrase itself taught me a massive lesson that I quickly want to share with you on Chop Talk number 53, which we'll get into right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the MeatEater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams

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This is Levertown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg and Kaleidoscope. Listen to Levertown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody, Shop Talk number 53. Church schools, what is that? So my second year of Manassas, we put together a new schedule for the coming fall and Manassas typically played a lot of schools from the urban area inside the city and I wanted the kids to get exposure to other kind of kids and other kind of programs and so I

Scheduled on our schedule a couple of private schools out east And when the schedule came out one of my players came to me and he said coach We're playing church schools And I looked at him and I'm like What what on earth are you talking about? A church school? What is that? And he said, I don't want to be disparaging to the school, so I would just say I'll make up. Let's call it First Baptist Academy. We're playing First Baptist Academy, FBA, they're church school. The other ones are

like private Christian schools or college prep schools, private schools, non-public schools. Day schools. Day schools, another good example. But my inner city kids called them church schools. And I said, church schools? What a weird thing to call schools, church schools. I had never heard it until you told me church schools. I had never heard it until

you told me this story. I'd never heard of it. So I started kind of asking around adults. Here's what I found out and I looked it up. In Memphis at that time there were 49 private schools, some K through 6, some pre-k through 8 some high school only some pre-k through 12 some parochial some small private Christian schools some really non-denominational schools some college preparatory schools but anyway there was 50 call it 55 it was in the 50s and I looked up their charter dates and all but six so call it you know 50 out of 56 all but six their charters were 1968 1969. Bussing. So what happened in the urban areas is when busing started and kids started getting bussed to different community public schools, the largely

white population from these urban areas didn't like that and so they needed, they wanted a place to go to school outside of the public school system and at that time back in those days there were certainly parochial schools and there were some really expensive college prep schools, but the average person who wasn't Catholic or couldn't afford the really expensive schools but didn't want to deal with busing was faced with an issue. And so what happened was churches all over the city set up schools and they were basically white flight schools largely outside of the inner city area sometimes in the suburbs

and so these churches set up schools so their children didn't have to be bussed. So began what I believe to be the disintegration of many urban school districts in some of our larger cities because along with that exodus to the church schools left the money, the booster club, the parents who could be active supporting the schools left the money, the booster club, the parents who could be active supporting the schools, the support and the diversity. And here we are some 50 years later and what's left is once again largely segregated by race and socioeconomics and class, urban schools against the backdrop of many private, what the inner city people might call church schools. The thing that bothers me the most about it is, one of my friends

once said, and he repeated this I think, I'm sure he's not the author of it, but the most segregated day in the United States is Sunday. And it should be the least segregated day. If we are called to engage in our community, help our fellow man, serve those less blessed than us, how is it that Sunday is when we're most segregated? But maybe a bigger question is, how is it that there's a population of people all over the urban areas in our cities that refer to the schools that our children go to as church schools. Church schools, the very place where everybody regardless of race or socioeconomic status should feel safe

and included ends up being the the nomenclature for the very segregation that has crippled the public education inside many of our urban areas, church schools. I almost wish I'd never heard the phrase because as I look deeper and deeper into it it is wrought with with segregation disenfranchisement and loss for kids in our city and white flight and it has developed into what I think is destructive for our society, that we have a largely less fortunate public going to large urban city districts and anybody else who could afford something different out in the outlining areas of

suburbs going to church schools. So look up the charters of the schools in your town and the city and ask yourself what was the beginning of that and certainly here 50 years later, I don't think there's nearly the racial component to it that there was at the beginning. I think we've evolved as a culture a little bit, but it doesn't mean that folks that are still in urban school districts,

when they hear the name of your school or they think of the place that your kids go to school that they don't think of them as church schools and the work we need to do to fix that. What do you think, Alex? A couple things that reminds me of Bob Mazikowski. If you remember, he said, Bob, he's, I wanna hang out with Bob.

He's one of the funniest guys in the world. We can make that happen, but he, he's like, you see the brochures for these private schools, and they always got the black kid on there, and it's like, you go into the school, and you can't find him. Like, and maybe Jamal's in there.

Like, they got one Jamal's in there. They got one Jamal on the basketball team. Bob is hilarious, but that is so true. You see the brochures and it's got an Asian kid or a Hispanic kid or a black kid and a couple of white kids and their nice little church school shirts. And then you go to the school and you're like,

where are these guys? It's funny, Bob said that. Yeah, and he said, also did say, and people need to hear this in the right vein, you know, you got a Jamal on the basketball team and you got an Albert Washington on the football team and they're on the brochures, but when you go to the school assembly,

doesn't look like that. Two other thoughts, too. I mean, when you have this happen, you've also stripped all these schools of power, a lot of the political power. The money, the power, the support, all of that. Just like we've talked about with, like I think about it with the rescue dogs,

with the All 4s Rescue League here in Memphis. It's like, you wouldn't have this happen in your neighborhood or it wouldn't happen in Germantown to have all these stray dogs running around terrorizing. And these, frankly, white people with political power, nobody cares that this is happening in the inner city and nobody cares that so many of these schools are terrible. And it's really not supposed to be a white, black thing

and it shouldn't be that way. I bet they care where the church schools are located. Yeah. We gotta fix this. That's so messed up. We have to look in the mirror and be honest about ourselves about where a lot of this stuff started. And although, you know,

you can't repent for another man's sins. And likewise, you know, in 2025, if you're going to a quote church school that was started in 68, you know, why and how that church that church school was founded Doesn't that doesn't mean you share that same viewpoint from 60 years before however We do have to be honest enough with ourselves About

the perception that was left behind that is still exists. And if we are honest with ourselves, we'll understand that a little bit, we might understand why there is fear, distrust, disenfranchisement and all the rest in many of our inner cities.

What's interesting is actually at my high school, St. Ignatius in Chicago. St. Ignatius? A church school. But they, I don't know where Euro started, but they would intentionally ask, I mean, it's an Apple in school, like the families who can afford it to pay more, like $4,000 to $5,000 a year more

to help other kids go. And so literally like 25% of the kids at Ignatius are based on a full ride from that. So there are things you can do now to rectify this problem at church schools. And it's especially incumbent on those who are more affluent to do it. Yeah, and that aid does not need to be requisite

on how well you shoot a basketball or how fast you run a football. And unfortunately, many schools use that aid for their own benefit. Or ours is purely academic. What's funny is like we weren't that good at sports because it's such an academic school. Well, good for y'all, but what I'm saying is there are a bunch of quote

church schools, there are a bunch of parochial schools, and there are a bunch of college prep schools who do that very thing under the guise of aren't we doing a good thing for poor folks, but when you look at who they're helping out, what are they trading that hope for? So ours was so bad, like when we were losing in a basketball game, the students would start cheering, you're gonna work for us. Okay.

That very cheer illustrates exactly what I'm saying. No, no, no, but I'm saying like we were so good about bringing students in not for athletic reasons that our team was bad. But consider the cheer. Just consider the cheer. Oh my goodness. We should just end this episode before I get more inappropriate.

Y'all, the whole idea behind this shop talk is not to make anybody feel guilty about where they send their kids to school. It's to give you perspective and why there is perspective about the segregation in our school systems that is no longer segregation among districts, it is segregation among public and private and parochial schools. And I think it's important to understand what others think about what we're doing and the history about that perspective and where it comes from, because that helps us to understand how to bridge gaps.

And that's the whole point of Bionchurch schools. There you go. Thanks for bringing us back, Allenville. That's it. So, shop talk number 53. Let's Let's try to eradicate the mentality of church schools By being honest with ourselves and recognizing maybe the sins of the past If you liked this episode, please rate and review it

If you have any ideas for shop talk, you can email me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us. I'll respond and if you have an idea for guests, send them to us. Alex will talk to them and hopefully get them on. What else? Join the something? I don't know. I feel tired. I think we're good to wrap it up. Join something. Yeah, join the army and normal folks out of us subscribe. Yeah, become a premium member all those things. Yeah any and all these things that will help us grow Shop Talk and Army of Normal Folks and Army of Normal Dead Folks and Army of Teenagers. Army of Normal Teenagers. That episode isn't

out either you're talking about all these other things. Good it's another tease. Alright Shop Talk number 53 we'll see you guys next week. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover No Rules Fighting, Japanese Street Racing, Resilient Favela Life, and much more. All real, completely uncensored. Listen to the Away Days podcast reporting from the underbelly

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