School desegregation is a public issue that involves

and affects youth. It’s a vital contemporary matter that requires

historical background to understand. It continues to provoke debates

among reasonable and well-intentioned people, who disagree about both

goals and solutions. In all these respects, it is an ideal topic for

sustained work in schools as a key component of civic education.

Last fall, we worked with students at a local high school in Maryland

to create an interactive, deliberative website

about the epic history of desegregation in their own district. ("We"

means the Democracy

Collaborative and the Institute

for Philosophy & Public Policy, both at the University of

Maryland.) We have now collaborated with NABRE, the Network of Alliances

Bridging Race and Ethnicity (pronounced “neighbor”), to

develop a plan for a replicating the same project in many school districts.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education,

the first of a series of 50th anniversaries of events in the Civil

Rights Era. Coming to understand the difficult choices made in one’s

own community seems both a good way to commemorate this history and

an excellent foundation for making choices today.