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Foreword
- University of California Press
- Chapter
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Foreword Given the tenacity of his commentary on double consciousness, mixed schools, and the color line, the capacity of W.E.B. DuBois to introduce the significance of the present work should come as little surprise. Writing during a period when school boards across the South were implementing varied forms of massive desegregation and noting unequivocally that the “United States has a long history of ignoring and breaking the law,” DuBois posed a central, albeit generally ignored, query: “During the 25 or 50 years while the southern South refuses to obey the law, what will happen to Negro children?” (Jones 1978: 7). His question was simple and forthright. Its answer, however, has not been so direct. What happened to the children? DuBois’s question haunts us into the present. To be sure, some previous scholarship provides discernible categorical responses to his query. For example, in the literature are firsthand accounts of the intimidation, isolation, and mistreatment black children experienced as they entered previously all-white settings (Beals 1994; Baker 1996; Morris & Morris 2002). Supplemented by television documentaries such as Eyes on the Prize that captured the countenance of angry mobs who would impinge upon the right of black children to attend previously all-white schools, this line of scholarship vividly answers DuBois’s ponderings about the experiences of children by elevating the violence and mistreatment that occurred. When linked with historical scholarship revealing the extent to which the experiences of black children in southern desegregated schools mirror the experiences xi Wells_FM 10/3/08 2:13 PM Page xi of other black children in desegregated schools in the North in the previous century (Jones 1978; Mohraz 1979), one answer to DuBois’s question is that the short-term effect of school desegregation on black children has consistently been school-level mistreatment. Other scholars have taken a more long-term view of the question and arrived at a different conclusion. This second line of scholarship counters stories of mistreatment with descriptions of outcome variables that describe the success of the children over time. In their answer to DuBois’s question, rising test scores and graduation rates are examples of the effect of desegregation on the children. Moreover, this literature demonstrates the increased access to social and professional networks that occurred for black children after desegregation (Orfield 2005; Braddock & Eitle 2003; Poll: Integration Improved 2004). In contrast to the portraits of individual mistreatment, this second group of studies implicitly posits that in the fifty or more years while some school boards constrained full implementation of the law, the effect of desegregation on the children has been long-term success. Both strands of scholarship are significant tributaries in explaining the effect of desegregation on children. Yet neither line of investigation fully delves into the nuances implicit in DuBois’s question. If we are to address his ponderings comprehensively, the experiences of children must be explored in the context of teaching and learning at the school level and must include a reflection over time and a conceptual link with the social and cultural milieu of the era. Between the recountings of mistreatment and beyond the descriptions of improving test scores and job opportunities , what actually happened to black children in the day-to-day process of education and how did these experiences influence their behaviors over time? Although DuBois did not include other ethnic groups in his question , a reasoned extension would also ask how white children or Latino children fared. Moreover, what has been the effect of their experiences in the fifty years while courts have embraced and then retreated from the laws governing school desegregation (Orfield & Eaton 1996)? Research in school segregation, desegregation, and resegregation has generally left questions as delicate and pivotal as these underexplored. Both Sides Now is groundbreaking in its intent to provide a broad, inclusive answer to DuBois’s decades-old question. In the pages that xii f o r e w o r d Wells_FM 10/3/08 2:13 PM Page xii [44.200.169.91] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:14 GMT) follow, Amy Stuart Wells, Jennifer Jellison Holme, Anita Tijerina Revilla, and Awo Korantemaa Atanda reveal the results of 550 interviews from six cases of school desegregation across the country where graduates completed their high school education in 1980. They question specifically how the children interacted while attending desegregated schools and how they have lived since. Using the voices of informants and drawing upon history, political science, sociology, and legal studies, they lead us into...