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

by Amy Stuart Wells

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.

Genres: Education

368 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2008

Reviews

[James Steichen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers perspectives on racial integration in American schools. The authors interviewed students who graduated from six different racially integrated high schools in the early 1980s. This was an era when many cities and states were trying hard to integrate schools. In the decades since, American schools have become more segregated again and these students and schools offer case studies as to why and how this happened.

What the book reveals is that for the most part the individual students had positive experiences in their desegregated schools. But as adults they mostly went on to live lives that were just as segregated as their parents. Desegregation of schools thus was one important effort but it was not enough to overcome other barriers such as housing segregation and social separation.

I attended a desegregated high school similar to the schools discussed in this book and the perspectives offered me ways to process many of my memories and experiences even though I graduated in the mid 1990s.

This book is geared more towards an academic readership but does not use a lot of jargon and is an accessible if somewhat long read.