Bringing Desegregation Home: Memories of the Struggle Toward School Integration in Rural North Carolina

ISBN-13: 9780230611351 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 222 str.

Kate Willink

Opis

In l954, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered states to eliminate racial segregation in public schools with ""all deliberate speed."" Nonetheless, many all-white school boards in ""progressive"" North Carolina delayed de jure segregation for decades and condoned elements of de facto segregation that persist today. This intimate study exposes the turmoil that the Court's decision unleashed in the quiet rural community of Camden County. Here brave students, parents, teachers, and principals all tell their fascinating stories, filled with pride, disappointment, humor, and terror. It uncovers a striking gap between black and white memories and raises questions about how we can progress toward an integrated society today.

Recenzje

"This book elaborates on the ever-present question of the true impact of school desegregation. The experience of implementing the decision in rural North Carolina is made so real by using oral history interviews with six residents, black and white, who were part of the process. The author has done an amazing amount of research and will set us to thinking again what that decision really accomplished." - Constance Curry, Author and Activist, Atlanta, Georgia

"Almost as if democracy were a hologram, collective memories on race and public education in the rural south shimmer into new focus. Each individual produces stories that seem detailed and complete - yet there are many such sites in this compelling work on the segregated nature of racial memory and social inequality." - Carol Stack, Author of Call To Home and All Our Kin

"This is raw, rich, and real. In a fascinating and refreshingly accessible account of place, memory, blackness, and whiteness, Willink skillfully draws out the honest, textured, and often humorous voices of individuals as each reveals, remembers, and reasons diverse - often divergent - lived experiences during desegregation. Students and scholars will benefit from reading this book." - Karla Slocum, Author of Free Trade and Freedom: Neoliberalism, Place and Nation in the Caribbean

"In this absorbing study, Willink has recorded memories from disparate sectors of the community, probed beneath their surfaces for illuminating insights, employed social theory to provide context, and, as a self-reflective scholar,critiqued her own role and reactions in the oral history process.Her workis a valuable contribution to the histories of civil rights and racial struggles, education, and social change in rural communities." - Jo Ann O. Robinson,Author ofEducation as My Agenda: Gertrude Williams,Race, and theBaltimorePublic Schools

Spis treści

Introduction 'Learn 'em To Work' 'Wait A Minute . . . I'm A White' From Social and Cultural Capital to Social Change The Ghost of Mr. Whittier Crockett Witherspoon The Gentle Rebel Pedagogy and Social Change 'You Forget This is A Democracy' A Drive to Succeed Memory, Pedagogy, and Social Change Moving On

O autorze

KATE WILLINK is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Drama and Speech Communication at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.