This book explores a profoundly negative narrative about legally segregated schools in the United States being "inherently inferior" compared to their white counterparts. However, there are overwhelmingly positive counter-memories of these schools as "good and valued" among former students, teachers, and community members.…

May 17, 2004 marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in the historic school desegregation case, "Oliver L. Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka (KS) et al." After concluding a survey of elementary school teachers about the struggle for school desegregation in the 1950s and 60s, this author found that, in most…

In the spring of 2003, the author worked with a team of eighth grade teachers at Asheville Middle School in North Carolina on a project that combined fine art, music, the history of the railroads, and the African American experience in the state and nation. In her classroom, students interviewed a retired train conductor, who was African American,…