Friends Disappear
The Battle for Racial Equality in Evanston
Friends Disappear
The Battle for Racial Equality in Evanston
In Friends Disappear Barr goes back to her old neighborhood and pieces together a history of Evanston with a particular emphasis on its neighborhoods, its schools, and its work life. She finds that there is a detrimental myth of integration surrounding Evanston despite bountiful evidence of actual segregation, both in the archives and from the life stories of her subjects. Curiously, the city’s own desegregation plan is partly to blame. The initiative called for the redistribution of students from an all-black elementary school to institutions situated in white neighborhoods. That, however, required busing, and between the tensions it generated and obvious markers of class difference, the racial divide, far from being closed, was widened. Friends Disappear highlights how racial divides limited the life chances of blacks while providing opportunities for whites, and offers an insider’s perspective on the social practices that doled out benefits and penalties based on race—despite attempts to integrate.
304 pages | 27 halftones, 3 maps, 4 line drawings | 6 x 9 | © 2014
Education: History of Education
History: American History, General History
Sociology: Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations
Reviews
Table of Contents
Who’s Who on the Porch
Introduction
1 Heavenston
2 A Salt-and-Pepper Mix
3 The Coffin Affair
4 Free to Roam
5 Bringing the Movement Home
6 Friends Disappear
7 Stuff for the Kids That Are Less Fortunate
Conclusion: Together Again, One Last Time
Notes
Index
Awards
Midwest Sociological Society: MSS Distinguished Book Award
Honorable Mention
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