Color and Character

A must-read for scholars of southern history and the history of education, and it provides a valuable window into the contemporary landscape of the politics of race and educational policy." - History of Education Quarterly

"An incredible deep dive into the true history of Charlotte's wrestle not only with integration, but with transitioning from another Jim Crow town to a New South city in which a progressive image at one one point was matched by progressive action and policy. [Grundy] also shows how easily history repeats itself when we turn our eye from uncomfortable truths." - Charlotte Observer

"Pamela Grundy's beautifully written book Color and Character is in many ways a tale not of just one school but of three, each illuminating a distinct stage in public education's 'long civil rights movement.'" - American Historical Review

"Brilliantly documents the dramatic historical arc of an all-black high school that became a model of integration in the 1970s, only to return in more recent years to a school that is once again segregated along racial lines." - Creative Loafing Charlotte

"A fine-grained depiction of life at West Charlotte, especially for the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, by drawing on over eighty oral history interviews conducted by Grundy and her students in cooperation with the University of North Carolina's Southern Oral History Project." - Historical Studies in Education