Unending Struggle: The Long Road to an Equal Education in St. Louis

Segregated schooling in Missouri did not come to an end until 1983, when the U.S. District Court decision Liddell v. Board of Education of St. Louis mandated desegregation. In Unending Struggle, Judge Gerald W. Heaney and Dr. Susan Uchitelle recount the history of St. Louis’s struggle for an equal education for African Americans.The Liddell lawsuit resulted in a comprehensive court-ordered plan, one of the most far-reaching strategies stemming from any desegregation case in the country. The plan included a voluntary interdistrict transfer program that placed thousands of urban black students in majority white schools in St. Louis County and called for racially desegregated magnet schools in the city. It required compensatory and remedial measures, including smaller classes, all-day kindergarten, and before- and after-school programs for students remaining in the city’s all-black schools. The plan also stipulated a major and expensive facilities program to renovate old schools and build new ones.Historical research and the authors’ personal experiences are interspersed with interviews that reveal the perspectives of students, teachers, administrators, and public officials who participated in the St. Louis metropolitan area desegregation program. Unending Struggle provides the historical background and a diversity of voices largely missing from the national debate on how to deliver equal education to African American children.