The Long Road to Brown, The Long Road Beyond: Race and Public Education in North Carolina

North Carolinians have always shaped their schools to reflect and reinforce prevailing attitudes about race. Even today, fifty-four years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, no single factor explains more about the dynamics of our schools. This three-part documentary traces the issue of race and schools from the 1860s to the present. Voices of North Carolina parents, educators, students, and public leaders bring this history to life.

1. The Long Road to Brown, 1865–1954

Long before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, African Americans in North Carolina fought for quality public education against a tide of white racism. Jim Crow, the South’s racial caste system, mandated segregated public schools and severely limited black access to educational resources. Nonetheless, African Americans built proud legacies of achievement inside Jim Crow schools, even as they campaigned against the state’s system of separate and unequal public education.

2. Brown’s Promise Unfulfilled, 1954–1968

For more than a decade following the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling outlawing racial segregation in public education, North Carolina’s white elite stymied integration of the state’s schools. Despite an active litigation campaign led by African American parents and attorneys, North Carolina’s white elite maintained separate schools for whites and blacks until the late 1960s.

3. From Desegregation . . .to Resegregation? 1969–Present

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, African Americans and white allies won significant victories in their long struggle for integrated public education. Schools across the state desegregated quickly after the Supreme Court’s 1971 pro-busing ruling in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. After peaking in the mid-1970s, North Carolina’s school integration levels have steadily declined. Proponents of integration fear that racial isolation in our public schools is now trending back toward pre-Brown levels.

Creative Development

Allyn Meredith (producer, audio), Joseph Mosnier (executive producer, script), Jessica Stair (producer, art direction, video, editing), and Sarah Thuesen (producer, script, narration)

Additional Support

Seth Koch, Katie Otis, and Elisabeth Smith (historical research); Keith Weston (audio restoration consulting), and Michael Schmidt (video and graphics consulting)

Featured Interviewees

Thurman Couch, William Culp Jr., Joyce Ferebee, Jesse Helms, J. W. Mask, Raney Norwood, Henry Oxendine, Maggie Ray, Gerald Sider, and Jeremy Tarr

Featured Interviewers

Sherick Hughes, Bob Gilgor, Pamela Grundy, Willie Lowery, Malinda Maynor, and Goldie Frinks Wells

DVD Disk Face

Design: Kim Bryant. Photograph: Library of Congress.

(Please view DVD for full acknowledgements and credits.)

The Long Road to Brown, The Long Road Beyond: Race and Public Education in North Carolina is a project of the Southern Oral History Program (founded in 1973 by Jacquelyn Hall) at the UNC Center for the Study of the American South. Visit: www.SOHP.org