Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools [Paperback]

Ms. Amy Stuart Wells (Author), Mr. Robert L. Crain (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 1999

This study of a school choice plan in St. Louis, Missouri -- which allowed black students to attend suburban schools -- reveals the ugliness and beauty of American race relations. It describes the resistance of suburban white educators, the fears that kept many black parents from taking advantage of school choice, and the courage of black students who crossed the color line, helped by those white educators who saw choice as an opportunity to improve education and create real integration.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Brown decision arrived at the public schools of the St. Louis area nearly 40 years after it was announced. Desegregation begun in 1983 differs from the forced busing frays that roiled such cities as Boston in the 1970s in that it was mostly voluntary: about 13,000 black students choose from 20 predominantly white and wealthy suburban school districts in which to enroll. The attitudes engendered by the program compose the core of this intent study. It has general resonance because the authors situate the particularities of St. Louis in the framework of the depopulation of American cities after 1950 and the reinforced color line dividing cities and suburbs that resulted. Wells, who grew up in St. Louis, and Crain interviewed hundreds involved in the desegregation program and obtained frank opinions from both the "transfers," as the code word goes, and the white educators in suburbia. A calm, scholarly description with a high quotient of objectivity that should engage those active, as professionals or protesters, in desegregation cases. Gilbert Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 392 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300081332
• ISBN-13: 978-0300081336
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,510,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Timely and Informative, May 26, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools (Paperback)

I first read this book for a graduate class in education, and I am now purchasing it for the second time. St. Louis is in the process of dismantling its voluntary desegregation program, and leaders are finding themselves asking the same questions they were at the program's inception. They are finding there are no clear solutions to the problem of race and equality in American society and schools, as evidenced in this excellently researched book.

TS Eliot said it better than I ever could: "And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Through this book Wells and Crain provide us with maps for our journey of understanding the dynamics of race in the U.S. Our paths, their work illustrates time and again, are left up to us.