Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow provides a compelling analysis of the
forces and choices that have shaped the trend toward the resegregation
of public schools. By assembling a wide range of
contributors--historians, sociologists, economists, and education
scholars--the editors provide a comprehensive view of a community's
experience with desegregation and economic development. Here we see
resegregation through the lens of Charlotte, North Carolina, once a
national model of successful desegregation, and home of the landmark
Swann desegregation case, which gave rise to school busing. This book
recounts the last forty years of Charlotte's desegregation and
resegregation, putting education reform in political and economic
context. Within a decade of the Swanncase, the district had developed
one of the nation's most successful desegregation plans, measured by
racial balance and improved academic outcomes for both black and white
students. However, beginning in the 1990s, this plan was gradually
dismantled. Today, the level of resegregation in Charlotte has almost
returned to what it was prior to 1971. At the core of Charlotte's story
is the relationship between social structure and human agency, with an
emphasis on how yesterday's decisions and actions define today's
choices.
