Arthur Griffin:
The white community really supported magnet schools. The suburban community, they loved it. The business community, loved magnet schools. The black community was so afraid of that. They just packed the school board meetings saying, "Don't have magnet schools. This is just a way to go back to segregated schools."

Pamela Grundy (interviewer):
Why did they see that as a way to go back to segregated schools?

Arthur Griffin:
Because it created magnet schools in the black community. And it forced black kids out, for the most part. It was a change from mandatory. They felt that if whites were given a chance to voluntarily select schools, that they wouldn't do it. That was the sense in the black community. And as the program grew, with a lot of restrictions, their realization became true. Because as you built a brand new school in the suburbs, and if you had a math-science theme for a magnet school, you have good math-science teachers at a new elementary school in the suburbs, why would you go to a math-science school? The curriculum's the same, basically. The communications magnet school we have now. If you have good language arts, good English teachers, at your neighborhood school, why would you go to a Communications Arts? So, over time, that's true. You could see, if you put a quality, brand-new, bells and whistles school out in the suburbs, those folk will stay. They won't come in.

- Arthur Griffin, Second Ward High School, Class of 1966

Interview with Arthur Griffin by Pamela Grundy, May 7, 1999, Interview K-0168, in the Southern Oral History Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Full text of interview.