When the Supreme Court overturned Louisville's local desegregation
plan in 2007, the people of Jefferson County, Kentucky, faced the
question of whether and how to maintain racial diversity in their
schools. This debate came at a time when scholars, pundits, and
much of the public had declared school integration a failed
experiment rightfully abandoned. Using oral history narratives,
newspaper accounts, and other documents, Tracy E. K'Meyer exposes
the disappointments of desegregation, draws attention to those who
struggled for over five decades to bring about equality and
diversity, and highlights the many benefits of school
integration.
K'Meyer chronicles the local response to
Brown v. Board of
Education in 1956 and describes the start of countywide busing
in 1975 as well as the crisis sparked by violent opposition to it.
She reveals the forgotten story of the defense of integration and
busing reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating in the response
to the 2007 Supreme Court decision known as
Meredith. This
long and multifaceted struggle for school desegregation, K'Meyer
shows, informs the ongoing movement for social justice in
Louisville and beyond.