Going to School in Black and White

"The challenges of identity, assimilation, achievement, and politics that were faced by Lahoma and Cindy are the same challenges our youth are facing today." –Jaki Shelton Green, poet and NC Literary Hall of Fame inductee The school careers of two teenage girls who lived across town from each other—one black, one white—were altered by a court-ordered desegregation plan for Durham, NC in 1970. LaHoma and Cindy both found themselves at the same high school from different sides of a court-ordered racial "balancing act." This plan thrust each of them involuntarily out of their comfort zones and into new racial landscapes. Their experiences, recounted in alternating first person narratives, are the embodiment of desegregation policies, situated in a particular time and place. Cindy and LaHoma’s intertwining coming of age stories are part of a bigger story about America, education and race—and about how the personal relates to the political. This dual memoir covers the two women’s life trajectories from early school days to future careers working in global public health, challenging gender biases, racial inequities, and health disparities. LaHoma and Cindy tell their stories aware of the country's return to de facto school segregation, achieved through the long-term dismantling of policies that initially informed their school assignments. As adults, they consider the influence of school desegregation on their current lives and the value of bringing all of us into conversation about what is lost or gained when children go to school in black and white.