Unearthing the Dream

A small-town African American community, forced to accept second-class materials for its schools, refuses to accept a second-class education for its children, giving rise to Black schools that inspired and cultivated success and pride.  The 1968 desegregation of the Malvern, AR schools planned to eliminate this separate and unequal system. But in the process it forced the very students it aimed to help to sacrifice their shared experience and identity. These formative years that most American high school students enjoy and recall with fond memories were stripped away, for the greater good of integration.  Forty years have passed, and those boys and girls are men and women with careers and families.  Yet they continue to grapple with the memory of this decision made for them, a memory that still reverberates throughout their lives.