Dream Not of Other Worlds: Teaching in a Segregated Elementary School,1970

Acknowledgments

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments I am very grateful to my colleagues in the English Department at the University of Iowa for their support while I was writing this book. Their enthusiastic response to an early draft of the first chapter, which I presented at a faculty colloquium, persuaded me to pursue this project at a time when I was tempted to abandon it and return to the more familiar and safer terrain of early modern drama. That they never questioned what a Renaissance scholar was doing writing a memoir about a segregated school in the Jim Crow South is a testament, I think, to our department’s open and creative spirit. Patricia Foster, David Hamilton, Robin Hemley, Sarah Levine, and Susan Lohafer, all members of the department’s nonfiction writing program, gave me much-appreciated encouragement, as did Ed Folsom, Miriam Gilbert, Kevin Kopelson, Kathy Lavezzo, Teresa Mangum, Susie Phillips, Garrett Stewart, Doug Trevor, Jon Wilcox, and Doris Witt. Harry Stecopoulos read drafts of two chapters and supplied me with invaluable bibliographic references, lending me copies of books he wanted me to read, helping me navigate recent criticism in the exciting area of African American Studies, and greatly enriching my understanding of race and class in America. Kathleen Diffley directed me to a number of useful works about Henry Box Brown and the antebellum South. Judith Pascoe made a particularly helpful suggestion about how I might traverse the gap between my narrative of a segregated classroom in 1970 and my return to that story in the twenty-first century . Horace Porter, Linda Bolton, and Peggy Smith (a faculty member in Iowa’s College of Law) very generously talked with me about their experiences growing up black in the post–World War II South, each providing me with a distinctive and valuable new perspective on my experience in Louisa County. And when I was afraid that health problems would prevent me from completing this book, my chair 240 Acknowledgments at the time, Brooks Landon, immediately responded by arranging a semester’s research assignment. Two colleagues, Mary Lou Emery and Dee Morris, deserve special thanks. Mary Lou believed in this project when it was nothing more than an amorphous idea and, unlike its author, she never wavered in her conviction that it would find an audience. She read multiple drafts of every chapter, carefully attending to tone, voice, language, and narrative and wrote extensive comments that always managed to zero in on exactly what needed to be rewritten, rethought, or thrown out. I am especially grateful for her ability to tell me, gently but firmly, when a section was misconceived, an argument fallacious, an anecdote sentimental , all the while championing the larger project. Dee read a draft of the entire manuscript while she was on leave in Wales and had far more important and pressing work to do. Her detailed and insightful response helped me stand back from what I had written and get a better perspective on its larger design. By identifying the different strands of my narrative and showing me what worked and what needed further attention, she made the task of revision much easier and even, dare I say, pleasurable. All her suggestions made their way into this book. I will not even try to express my appreciation for the many extraordinary acts of friendship Mary Lou and Dee have shown me over the years. Two good friends from my graduate school days at Duke University also made valuable contributions. Diane Mowrey joined me in Charlottesville on one of my summer research trips and helped out in all kinds of ways, cheerfully reading maps, consulting phone books, touring a museum, and chatting with strangers during our exploratory forays into Louisa County, all the while asking me probing questions about my project. Susan Ward read early drafts of the first three chapters , which greatly benefited from her finely honed editorial skills. She raised a series of provocative questions about my personal experience in Louisa that helped me reflect on that experience, and she also made a number of illuminating observations about class, poverty, race, and “race etiquette” that gave me valuable insights into southern culture. I especially appreciated her willingness to reflect on her own experience growingupwhiteinasmallNorthCarolinatowninthe1950sand1960s and to recall her own bewilderment and confusion as she tried to make sense of the rules and customs governing race relations at that time. Acknowledgments 241 I am deeply grateful to my former student, Matilda Timberlake Beauford, for sharing with me her memories of our...