Dr. Delmont’s, an expert in African-American history, project, “Why Busing Failed,” is an attempt at explaining the so called failure of busing during the Civil Rights era. The evidence Dr. Delmont uses is various propaganda pieces from journals, excerpts from trials, news paper articles, and different advertisements. Dr. Delmont makes an argument that the busing failed narrative is a false one, pushed to make people accept the, “…continued racial and socioeconomic segregation of schools…” Dr. Delmont makes a good argument both about the existence of busing before “busing” became a term used by media and that segregation still exists only under a different form. I’ve been studying the evolution of church doctrines in my spare time, and I found a weird similarity here. That evolution in things occurs without people realizing it, and the understand of this evolution only happens sometime later in retrospective. I do think that Dr. Delmont is biased towards the direction of there being segregation existing, as his specialty is in the civil rights era, and he likely views most things through such a lense. The website is very well laid out, navigation is quick and simple, and the content is broken up into 12 smaller segments. The website is directed towards people generally interested in hearing an easy to read and understand argument about segregation and busing, likely high school students or college classes. The content is accessible, but if it were in a journal style format it would appeal to scholars, and if it were in a film format, would appeal to a far more broad audience than it does currently. The website is good in form and function, and make interesting arguments. Its meaning is somewhat lost on me, however, because the change it would require is unrealistic to achieve. It would require such a monumental change that a powerful reformer would have to take power and turn the education world on its head. While it is nice to fantasize about something like that happening, it’s unrealistic and improbable, only slow reforms are possible.
Citations:
Delmont, Matthew F. “Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation by Matthew F. Delmont.” Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. http://whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busing-failed/index.
Delmont, Matthew F. “Busing before ‘Busing.’” Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation. http://whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busing-failed/busing-before-busing.
Delmont, Matthew F. “Why Busing Failed.” Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation http://whybusingfailed.com/anvc/why-busing-failed/introduction?path=index.
