In our high school class, we spent almost two hours editing the text<\/p>\n
that accompanies the first seven pictures in this slideshow<\/a><\/p>\n on the history of school desegregation <\/b>in Prince George’s County.<\/p>\n We had planned to cover much more ground, but I believe the editing exercise<\/p>\n was extremely useful. <\/p>\n First, I don’t think the students usually edit what they write, so<\/p>\n this was a valuable experience for them. <\/p>\n Second, there are profound political differences implied by small changes<\/p>\n in the way you describe events. It sounds very different to say, "African<\/p>\n American students were required to ride buses to predominantly White<\/p>\n schools," or "The NAACP forced the County to bus students<\/p>\n to promote integration." Both are true; but the political implications<\/p>\n are hugely different. Trying to write narrative text is a wonderful<\/p>\n way to learn skills of historical interpretation. <\/p>\n Third, I kept pressing the class to make sure we had evidence for our<\/p>\n claims. They wanted to say, for example, that busing led to White protests<\/p>\n in Prince George’s County. This turned out to be true, but at first<\/p>\n nobody could remember any evidence to support the claim. I tried to<\/p>\n persuade the class that we have an obligation to prove to ourselves<\/p>\n that our assertions about specific places and times are right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The text that is currently on the Website does not yet reflect the students’<\/p>\n latest edits. They were eager not to focus too much on their own high<\/p>\n school (which used to exclude Blacks as a matter of law). Our students<\/p>\n themselves would all be excluded today, but they still don’t like the<\/p>\n negative focus on their school. They also want to avoid a simple Black\/White<\/p>\n narrative, since the communities they know are more ethnically and racially<\/p>\n diverse. But it’s hard to figure out what to say about other races in<\/p>\n the 1950s. It appears from old yearbooks that some people who would today<\/p>\n be called Latinos attended all-"White" schools. We have no data<\/p>\n on Hispanics\/Latinos, since the Census did not use that category until<\/p>\n the 1970s. As for Asians, there were only 283 in the County in 1950, according<\/p>\n to the Census, so we don’t know what happened to their kids.<\/p>\n I also had an interesting conference call with NACE<\/a><\/p>\n members and participated in an "audio press conference" sponsored<\/p>\n\n