Along Freedom Road
Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South
By David S. Cecelski
248 pp., 6 x 9, 15 illus., 3 maps
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Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4437-3
Published: April 1994 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6073-1
Published: November 2000 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6549-6
Published: November 2000
Buy this Book
- Paperback $42.50
- E-Book $29.99
Awards & distinctions
1996 Outstanding Book Award, Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America
Walter Hines Page Literary Award
A 1996 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
1995 History Book Award, North Carolina Society of Historians
1995 Critics' Choice Award, American Educational Studies Association
The threatened closing of Hyde County's black schools collided with a rich and vibrant educational heritage that had helped to sustain the black community since Reconstruction. As other southern school boards routinely closed black schools and displaced their educational leaders, Hyde County blacks began to fear that school desegregation was undermining--rather than enhancing--this legacy. This book, then, is the story of one county's extraordinary struggle for civil rights, but at the same time it explores the fight for civil rights in all of eastern North Carolina and the dismantling of black education throughout the South.
About the Author
David S. Cecelski is the Lehman Brady Joint Chair Professor in Documentary and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Reviews
"A superb piece of scholarship. . . . Well written and well organized. . . . Must reading for any student wishing to fully understand the legacy of the Brown case."--Journal of Southern History
"The provocative story of the Brown decision's impact on one Tidewater county draws into question some of integration's cherished precepts. . . . Such original scholarship when 'school choice' is a current issue bears serious contemplation."--Booklist
"Cecelski makes his case with clarity and fairness, weaving the larger message of his book through the important story of a community of black people who set out to save a piece of their heritage, believing that it was simply too important to lose."--Progressive
"Cecelski reveals the underside of school desegregation, that southern blacks bore most of its burdens. . . . A well-written analysis of a neglected feature of the civil rights movement in the South."--North Carolina Historical Review
"Along Freedom Road is a book that should be read by anyone interested in civil rights, schooling, and southern history."--History of Education Quarterly
"A must read for those interested in the ongoing debate about the long-term implications of school integration and desegregation."--Choice