Charlotte and the American Dilemma

"Race, today as much as ever, is the American dilemma." 1 Paying homage to Gunnar Myrdal 2 and recognizing nearly four centuries of American history, Professor Davison Douglas tellingly opens his book Reading, Writing and Race: The Desegregation of the Charlotte Schools (Reading, Writing and Race). 3 Professor Douglas comprehensively and perceptively assesses desegregation of the public schools in that moderate southern city during the two-decade period after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 issuance of Brown v. Board of Education. 4 His focus is the integration of public education in Charlotte; however, Professor Douglas instructively evaluates many additional issues that principally involve race. Reading, Writing and Race ends with an observation that is as sobering as the one with which it begins: "America in the 1990s has by no means resolved the problem of race. " 5 Nonetheless, Professor Douglas concludes that the efforts to desegregate the Charlotte public schools show that, "on occasion, both political protest and judicial action have been remarkably effective in forging the convergence of white and black interests necessary to secure the full promise of racial equality." 6 In this Review, I first descriptively analyze Reading, Writing and Race. The Review then emphasizes Professor Douglas's valuable contributions in numerous important areas. I next pose a number of difficult, and perhaps unanswerable, questions primanly implicating race, most of which Reading, Writing and Race expressly addresses and others of which the book implicitly treats. These queries are meant to encourage continuing dialogue and to suggest promising avenues for future exploration. Las Vegas. I wish to thank Peggy Sanner and Hank Waters for valuable suggestions, Cecelia Palmer and Charlotte Wilmerton for processing this piece, as well as the Harris Trust and the Rogers Foundation for generous, continuing support. Errors that remain are mine. The initial chapter of Reading, Writing and Race includes a brief discussion of the nearly century-long history, following the Civil War, of separate and unequal public education in North Carolina and the few essentially unsuccessful efforts to challenge this system. 7 Professor Douglas devotes the remainder of Reading, Writing and Race to assessing the developments respecting desegregation that ensued principally in Charlotte during two periods, each of which lasted approximately a decade in the years following the 1954 Brown decision. 8 Professor Douglas suggests that the first ten or fifteen years subsequent to Brown's issuance were characterized by token integration and by the Supreme …