Integrated: How American Schools Failed Black Children

The school integration attempts that followed in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education did more to hurt Black children than to help them, according to this illuminating study from Rooks (A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit), the chair of Africana Studies at Brown University. Drawing on a range of sociological and archival data, Rooks describes “the trauma Black students suffered” due to integration—not just the havoc caused by many school districts’ attempts to resist desegregation (one Virginia county famously closed all its schools rather than comply), but the disruption Black students experienced when their own schools shuttered (many districts that complied did so by closing Black schools and reassigning the students to white schools) and they were thrust into environments where they were exposed to racism from white classmates and teachers. She also draws an astute through line between school integration and the emergence of the school-to-prison pipeline, arguing that white students’ and teachers’ racist fear of Black students is what jump-started it. Rooks concludes by spotlighting the “community school” model pioneered by the Black Panthers—which has recently had a successful relaunch in Oakland, Calif.—that emphasizes the democratic engagement of the local community, and which, Rooks argues, has the power to promote integration organically via “collective buy-in”: “If communities allow it, integration works,” she writes, but only when all community members feel engaged. The result is a paradigm-shifting reassessment of a milestone of the civil rights movement. (Mar.)