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Just Trying to Have School: The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi
After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, no state fought longer or harder to preserve segregated schools than Mississippi. This massive resistance came to a crashing halt in October 1969 when the Supreme Court ruled in Alexander v. Holmes Board of Education that "the obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools."
Thirty of the thirty-three Mississippi districts named in the case were ordered to open as desegregated schools after Christmas break. With little guidance from state officials and no formal training or experience in effective school desegregation processes, ordinary people were thrown into extraordinary circumstances. However, their stories have been largely ignored in desegregation literature.
Based on meticulous archival research and oral history interviews with over one hundred parents, teachers, students, principals, superintendents, community leaders, and school board members, Natalie G. Adams and James H. Adams explore the arduous and complex task of implementing school desegregation. How were bus routes determined? Who lost their position as principal? Who was assigned to what classes?
Without losing sight of the important macro forces in precipitating social change, the authors shift attention to how the daily work of "just trying to have school" helped shape the contours of school desegregation in communities still living with the decisions made fifty years ago.
Thirty of the thirty-three Mississippi districts named in the case were ordered to open as desegregated schools after Christmas break. With little guidance from state officials and no formal training or experience in effective school desegregation processes, ordinary people were thrown into extraordinary circumstances. However, their stories have been largely ignored in desegregation literature.
Based on meticulous archival research and oral history interviews with over one hundred parents, teachers, students, principals, superintendents, community leaders, and school board members, Natalie G. Adams and James H. Adams explore the arduous and complex task of implementing school desegregation. How were bus routes determined? Who lost their position as principal? Who was assigned to what classes?
Without losing sight of the important macro forces in precipitating social change, the authors shift attention to how the daily work of "just trying to have school" helped shape the contours of school desegregation in communities still living with the decisions made fifty years ago.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 9, 2018
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April 28, 2024
In 2018, two Education professors published Just Trying to Have School: The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi. The book is essentially a synthesis of Bolton, but it adds a rich oral history to the historiography. Natalie Adams and James Adams (no relations) tell the story of school desegregation in Mississippi through the stories and anecdotes of school administrators, teachers, parents, and students of both races. The book's focus is between 1968 and 1971 when the state grappled with implementing Brown. Their findings are valuable to my research because they reveal attitudes and emotions that were attendant during the upheaval involved in integration.
They provided a more detailed account of the events leading up to Alexander v. Holmes County than Bolton; however, their effort fell far short of the expose one could have expected from Kluger. They tell little of Beatrice Alexander's back story, do not identify the plaintiff or defense lawyers, and are not always clear on what judges were involved at the district and appellant court levels. The authors also provided statistical analysis of private school formation and participation during the era. They based their findings solely on secondary sources, which diminishes the scholarship of that important section.
They provided a more detailed account of the events leading up to Alexander v. Holmes County than Bolton; however, their effort fell far short of the expose one could have expected from Kluger. They tell little of Beatrice Alexander's back story, do not identify the plaintiff or defense lawyers, and are not always clear on what judges were involved at the district and appellant court levels. The authors also provided statistical analysis of private school formation and participation during the era. They based their findings solely on secondary sources, which diminishes the scholarship of that important section.
Displaying 1 of 1 review