In 1976, thousands of low-income African Americans, mostly women and children, began to move out of the public housing developments of Chicago, Illinois, to the mostly white middle class suburbs. These families were part of the Gautreaux program, one of the largest court-ordered desegregation efforts in the United States. This book tells the story of this unique venture and examines the factors involved in implementing and sustaining mobility-based programs. The chapters are: (1) "Introduction: A Modern Odyssey"; (2) "Desegregation within the City's Limits: The Scattered Site Program"; (3) "Inventing the Metropolitan-Wide Gautreaux Program"; (4) "Implementing the Gautreaux Program: Two Decades of Moving Out"; (5) "Families on the Move"; (6) "Safety First"; (7) "Social Interactions"; (8) "Schooling"; (9) "Education and Employment Outcomes"; and (10) "Conclusion: The Road Ahead." (Contains 281 endnotes and a selected bibliography of 19 sources.) (SLD)