This week marks 50 years since the Supreme Court decision in the case of Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.
This was the ruling that brought court-ordered busing and integration for Charlotte schools, and made our city a model for the integration of large school districts through busing. Busing lasted until 2001 when the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that busing would end.
Resegregation in CMS has been happening since that ruling.
We’ll be joined by historians and those who remember the case firsthand to talk about the case, what successes it led to and where our schools are now.
Guests:
· Dr. Willie Griffin, Ph.D., staff historian with Levine Museum of the New South
· Arthur Griffin, Charlotte native, former school board chair, and lifelong champion for equity in education; former chair of the Charlotte Political Black Caucus
· James Ferguson, founding partner with Ferguson, Chambers & Sumter, the law firm that presented the Swann Case (Julius Chambers filed the suit).
· Pamela Grundy, historian and author of “Color and Character: West Charlotte High and the American Struggle over Educational Equality”