Voices of the People: Studies of Louisville Desegregation

80 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Review Essay Voices of the People Studies of Louisville Desegregation Dionne Danns I came to history because of the stories my high school and college history teachers told. They knew the fascinating backgrounds of the historical characters , and I was intrigued by the choices these individuals made and challenges they faced and overcame. As a Ph.D. student, I wanted to tell stories, but mentors warned me that stand alone stories can become fodder for those who choose to put their own interpretations on those stories. While the stories remain essential to history, without careful analysis readers can easily misinterpret the lessons or understanding the historian tries to convey. The stories I imagined I would once tell drew me to oral history. Many historians once and sometimes still view this methodology with suspicion. Participants’ faulty memories and interpretations of the past could surely cloud any study. Richard White, in Remembering Ahanagran, warned that “history is the enemy of memory.” Yet he acknowledged that memory is a guide if one chooses to embark on “dense and tangled terrain” in “the jungle of the past.” Despite careful and eloquent warnings , historians are more likely to use and accept oral history as an essential tool for understanding the past and recognizing the voices of those less likely to leave traditional records. Scholars such as Paul Thompson, Jan Vansina, Studs Terkel, and others forged important steps and provided important guidance for scholars who would later utilize oral history and tradition. In the last twenty to thirty years, oral history has moved from a place of suspicion to a more readily accepted source for historical studies. More recently, scholars have moved from simply accommodating oral history into their studies of desegregation to having oral history at the center of their work. These two books are among the most recent studies of this sort.1 Tracey E. K’Meyer’s From Brown to Meredith uses oral history interviews from four different projects. K’Meyer became interested in this research as she followed the responses to the 2007 Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education case. She latches on to the increasingly popular “long movement” perspective historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall introduced. According to K’Meyer, her study captures the various school desegregation plans and changes that evolved over the years. Her long movement viewpoint enables her to reveal the growth and development of the plans, as well as the often forgotten support for school desegregation DIONNE DANNS FALL 2014 81 in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition, her use of oral history interviews brings a local people approach that foregrounds the perspectives of community actors. She purposely chooses to allow local people to speak for themselves, as slightly edited interview transcripts stand alone, bookended by careful analysis at the beginning and end of each chapter. K’Meyer’s study highlights the many stages of school desegregation in Louisville. She captures each of these stages in the four chapters between the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter focuses on school desegregation from 1954 to 1971 when the city initiated a voluntary desegregation plan that involved the input of various community members and groups. The involvement of these groups effectively stymied mass resistance. The plan had problems , however, because it allowed both blacks and whites to transfer to schools with students predominantly of their race. Despite plan limitations, Louisville’s early desegregation looked progressive compared to other southern cities. The narratives for this chapter cover the process, problems, and the experiences of students, teachers, and administrators. The chapter reviews participants’ different types of memories based on how they became involved with the process. Many administrators had positive memories, while students remembered the struggles they faced because of racism. The second chapter covers a far more turbulent time. As whites moved to the Jefferson County, re-segregation took place in Louisville. Following federal pressure, a lawsuit, and a countywide desegregation plan, more contentious antidesegregation protests ensued endangering the lives of some participants. This era of desegregation involved the busing of both blacks and whites—though blacks disproportionally so—and led to mass resistance rivaling Boston. The narratives K’Meyer highlights in this section include the voices...