{"product_id":"the-dream-long-deferred-the-landmark-struggle-for-desegregation-in-charlotte-north-carolina","title":"The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte  North Carolina","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fifty-year history of one communitys battles with race in public education  The Dream Long Deferred tells the fifty-year story of the landmark struggle for desegregation in Charlotte  North Carolina  and the present state of the citys public school system. Award-winning writer Frye Gaillard  who covered school integration for the Charlotte Observer  updates his earlier 1988 and 1999 editions of this work to examine the difficult circumstances of the present day.  When the struggle to desegregate Charlotte began in the 1950s  the city was much like many other New South cities. But unlike peer communities that would resist federal rulings  Charlotte chose to begin voluntary desegregation of its schools in 1957. Over the next decade it made consistent  if slow  progress toward greater integration.  The glacial pace of change frustrated Charlottes black citizens  prompting them to file lawsuits in federal court to seek nothing less than complete integration. When the U.S. District Court in 1969  and subsequently the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971  upheld that demand in the landmark Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg decision  Charlotte became the national test case for busing. Though the transition was not always peaceful  within five years Charlotte was a model of successful integration. North Carolinians of all races joined in public and private initiatives to make desegregation work and garnered national recognition for their achievement. Based on the favorable results  a powerful consensus developed in Charlotte that desegregation was morally right and educational beneficial. But that opinion was not to last.  Charlottes population grew rapidly in the 1990s  and many new arrivals were weary of the status of the public school system. In 1999 a group of white citizens reopened the case to push for a return to neighborhood schools. A federal judge sided with them  finding that the plans initiated in the 1971 ruling were both unnecessary and unconstitutional because they were race-based. Charlottes journey had come full circle.  Today  Gaillard explains  Charlottes schools are becoming segregated once morethis time along both economic and racial lines. A growing number of white students are either leaving the public school system for private institutions or converging on a few exceptional schools in affluent communities. This exodus from neighborhood schools has put the future of the citys public school system in jeopardy once more.  In this new edition of The Dream Long Deferred  Gaillard chronicles the span of Charlottes five-decade struggle with race in education to remind us that the national dilemma of equal educational opportunity remains unsettled. Balanced in his treatment of all sides  Gaillard gives the issue a human face so that historians  educators  and ordinary citizens can better glean understanding from the triumph and tragedy of one American community.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44964157292597,"sku":"ByrdShop_1570036454","price":30.76,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781570036453.jpg?v=1770451325","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-dream-long-deferred-the-landmark-struggle-for-desegregation-in-charlotte-north-carolina","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}