📱 Thank you to NetGalley for an e-book ARC. This book was extremely thought-provoking. The history I was taught was that Brown v Board of Education was a net positive to finally achieve desegregated schools in the U.S. However, now that it’s been 60 years, we can see that we neither accomplished desegregation nor did we accomplish better education for black children. In some school districts, schools are just as segregated today as they were in the 1960’s and 70’s.

The author does an excellent job weaving stories of her grandparents who were teachers pre-Brown as well as her own stories being the only black child to desegregate her schools, followed by her son‘s experience in white only schools and the bias and discrimination he was the recipient of.

The aha moment for me in reading this book was when the author talked about the experience of her father being educated in black-only schools taught by black teachers who believed in him. Contrast that to when he went to an all-white law school in California and he dropped out due to the culture shock and the biases his white teachers held.

Pre-Brown, black schools were central to black power and building black children up. They were often the center for social justice movements. Post-Brown, all of the black teachers permanently lost their jobs (because the white parents of integrated schools refused to have their white children taught by black teachers) and the cornerstones of the black community were dismantled along with it.

I had never considered what was lost in the way America integrated its schools. I never considered the extreme downside to going from black teachers who build you up to white teachers who refuse to believe you’re just as capable as the white children in their classrooms.

What’s worse, we didn’t even achieve integration! Because once the inner city schools started desegregating, white flight kicked in and white families moved to the suburbs. Our schools have never achieved true integration nor true equality. And in some ways, children have it worse now than in the days pre-Brown. That’s at least the perspective the author provides. We have all collectively failed the majority of black children and only the select few actually benefit from our schools in a post-Brown world.

“One truth that is perhaps simple, perhaps not, is that the integration of schools in the United States made racial progress and economic opportunity possible for a relative few Black people, while making it much, much, more difficult for many to achieve.”

“The dream of a taxpayer-supported public school system available to all became a tale of two systems: an underfunded public system mostly attended by black students and another made up of public and newly opened private schools set up for and populated by white children.”

There is no doubt that the topic of racially motivated school segregation in the US is an important one, and Noliwe Rooks certainly has the academic prestige and the knowledge to write about it. However, perhaps something about her writing style failed to compel me to keep reading. Despite the book's subtitle making it clear what it's about, I found that Rooks almost equivocates her main argument in the introduction, e.g. "Is school segregation *really* all that bad for Black children? Wellllllll..." Which was rather startling and confusing to read, and didn't really make me feel keen on continuing to puzzle out her thesis.

Integrated takes personal narrative, policies, and history to tell a more complicated history of the after effects of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. I highly recommend reading this with Punished for Dreaming by Bettina L. Love.

There was so much important history in this book, most of it I did not know. The stories were inspiring, hopeful, and heartbreaking. There was a lovely balance between the author’s personal history and general history, policies, and national legislature. The content was challenging, but Rooks made it feel accessible.
The book centers around Brown v. Board, the history leading up to the case, and the aftermath. One of the first steps in the massive undertaking of reform of systemic racism in schools is education on what that looked like in the past and what it still looks like today. America did not set up Black students to succeed and took away many of the resources obtained before Brown v. Board. I was fascinated by how many Black Americans were against desegregation, as it’s always taught as a progressive, positive act. Integration, as it was done, was done without a plan and left Black students vulnerable to an increase in racism that left their school lives no longer safe. Racism in America is rampant, and the three generations of stories Rook shares show that.
I grew up in a school with METCO and have always been so interested in how a system like that improved anything — it’s taxing on the student’s mental and physical wellbeing. It tries to solve a problem by inconveniencing the people it is presumed to help.
I am angry and sad and so glad I was able to read this book. Thank you to the publisher, Noliwe Rooks and NetGalley, for giving me the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Despite having some knowledge about the history of Brown v. Board of Education, I learned a lot from this book and believe it should be required reading for anyone interested in the education field or policy. It’s researched well with historical facts and personal anecdotes that explain the negative impacts from the case that still persist today. Like others have said, I believe this was well written and is a very important topic that needs to be studied and chronicled.

This was such an interesting backstory to what I feel like I’ve learned about Brown vs the Board of Education. I really appreciated the different perspective and feel like I learned a whole lot of new information!