Systemic School Segregation

I would argue that the most important literary pairing is James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Without being deliberate, I read The Fire Next Time along with Between the World and Me -- the second being the logical extension of the first. I recently read Notes of a Native Son at the same time as We Were Eight Years in Power, and I felt the truly heightened impact of each as a result.

Taylor Branch, the historian known best for his three-part magnum opus on the Civil Rights Movement, argues that there is no more defining force in America than that of race (and, in turn, racism). Baldwin and Coates take that a step further, and this phenomenal podcast offers a specific take on it, as pertinent to public school systems. Whether it was "The Little Rock Nine" or Brown v. Board of Education, American schools continue to be a tragic laboratory in which the most gruesome effects of racism -- both institutional, and that which is a product of individual choice -- reveal themselves. All of this is why I enjoyed (enjoyed?) what I'm sharing here.