The US Supreme Court's 1954 landmark decision, Brown v Board of Education, set into motion a process of desegregation that would transform American public schools. This book provides an assessment of how Brown's most visible effect - contact between students of different racial groups - has changed over the fifty years since the decision.

Second, despite this change, four main factors prevented even larger increases: white reluctance to accept racially mixed schools, the multiplicity of options for avoiding such schools, the willingness of local officials to accommodate the wishes of reluctant whites, and the eventual loss of will on the part of those who had been the strongest protagonists in the push for desegregation. Thus decreases in segregation within districts were partially offset by growing disparities between districts and by selected increases in private school enrollment.

List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables xi
Preface xv
Introduction 1
Chapter One
Walls Came Tumbling Down 13
Chapter Two
The Legacies of Brown and Milliken 44
Chapter Three
Residential Segregation and "White Flight" 75
Chapter Four
The Private School Option 100
Chapter Five
Inside Schools: Classrooms and School Activities 126
Chapter Six
Higher Learning and the Color Line 148
Chapter Seven
So What? 178
Methodological Appendix 201
Notes 217
References 245
Index 263<
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