Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
I wrote this essay in December 2019, shortly after attending the 2019 LatCrit Conference in Atlanta. I grew up in Atlanta during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s into the early 1970s. Attending the 2019 LatCrit Conference brought back memories of my experiences as part of the earliest waves of black students sent to integrate Atlanta's historically all-white high schools. In the intervening years, too many elementary and high schools in America remain segregated (or, in many instances, only nominally integrated) as broad swaths of America have abandoned the commitment to ensuring that our young people are educated in richly integrated and diverse environments. Our country's racial, ethnic, and political divisions are deepening in ways that threaten the American experiment with multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy. In order for America (as we wish to know it) to adhere, we must find ways to expand the opportunities for our young people to have integrative, meaningful early-in-life collaborations with a broad range of humanity. Simply put, people, particularly young people, are less likely to carry the psychological wounds and fears that tend to foment conscious, unconscious, and systemic racism.
Recommended Citation
Neil G. Williams, A Reflection on Integration, 17 Rev. Estudios Criticos D. 35 (2021).