Both Sides Now: The Story of School Desegregation’s Graduates

Amy Wells

Jan 2009 · Univ of California Press

About this ebook

This is the untold story of a generation that experienced one of the most extraordinary chapters in our nation's history—school desegregation. Many have attempted to define desegregation, which peaked in the late 1970s, as either a success or a failure; surprisingly few have examined the experiences of the students who lived though it. Featuring the voices of blacks, whites, and Latinos who graduated in 1980 from racially diverse schools, Both Sides Now offers a powerful firsthand account of how desegregation affected students—during high school and later in life. Their stories, set in a rich social and historical context, underscore the manifold benefits of school desegregation while providing an essential perspective on the current backlash against it.

Ratings and reviews

I find it amazing how politically-correct and removed from reality this book is. I went through the Char-Meck schools during this era (East Meck, 1980) and it was nothing like the romanticized version portrayed here. The forced desegregation was an unmitigated disaster that destroyed the public school system. -Unlike the depiction here, West Charlotte was regarded as being the singularly worst high school in the Char-Meck school system during this time. In fact, West Charlotte was the only high school we played where the band was not allowed to visit the other side during the 3rd quarter as it was so bad (The West Charlotte band was far and away the worst in the school system---also a joke). -One bit of spin in the book that brought back memories is the implication that going to West Charlotte allowed one to do Godspell instead of the lily white Sound of Music at the traditionally white high school (that would be Myers Park). I attended both productions (having friends at both schools) and the quality of the Sound of Music at Myers Park was at the semi-pro level while Godspell at West Charlotte was an embarrassment. The suggestion that West Charlotte was above doing boring Rogers and Hammerstein does not mesh with reality either: West Charlotte did Carousel two years earlier--I saw that as well and it was no better. One note of comparison for these productions: At Myers Park, the school's orchestra performed the music. At West Charlotte it was a trio of teachers. The West orchestra simply was not capable of doing so. -I suspect that the author's spin on social integration within West Charlotte at this time is an exaggeration as well. East was integrated too. However, the general pattern was that the black students stayed with blacks and the whites stayed with whites. There was some, but little, social interaction among them. I doubt it was much different at West Charlotte. -The proof is in the pudding as they say here. Forced busing drove whites from the school system. When I graduated East in 1980, it was predominantly white and was one of the three best public high schools (South and Myers Park the others). Now, whites are the minority at East as they are in most of the Char-Meck high schools. Those who can now send their kids to private schools. -One can just look at a map of Charlotte to see the effect of forced busing. Busing created a demand for new housing as far away from black areas as possible. There farther you were away (unless you were rich and lived in Myers Park--whites in the Myers Park district did not get bussed), the more likely you were to avoid busing. What is now the geographic center of Charlotte was not even in Charlotte at the start of busing. -The politically correct class will call this racism. This canard avoids facing reality. Maybe parents did not want their kids to spend 3 hours a day on a death trap bus. You should have seen the buses we were forced to ride in this grand social experiment. Kids lives were put at risk. Maybe parents were fed up with the uncertainty of having to wait until mid-August until his Excellency, Judge James B. McMillan decided where their kids were going to go to school in September. -It is true that the system that had existed in the Charlotte school system needed to change. Charlotte did have forced segregation in place prior to the busing era. What the courts failed to realize was that there were two causes of segregation: race and economics. Every year Judge James tried to put the right number of black and white dots together in each school and every year the demographics and distribution of students changed to foil him for the next year. -The theme the author try to spin with this book is that we have gone backwards from the good old days of the 1970s and 1980s. The reality policy makers should take from the Char-Meck busing disaster is the lesson that there are limits to what you can do with social engineering and judicial power.

About the author

Amy Stuart Wells is Professor of Sociology and Education,Teachers' College, Columbia University. Jennifer Jellison Holme is Assistant Professor of Educational Policy, University of Texas, Austin. Anita Tijerina Revilla is Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Awo Korantemaa Atanda is Survey Specialist, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.