Thread by @thequotablelife

I'm looking for the right words for @dallasfreepress' presentation this Wednesday to the @DallasTRHT #RENOW2023 cohort, and coincidentally, "desegregation" is the @Dictionarycom #wordoftheday.

dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-…

Another thing: "desegregation" ≠ "integration"

"Desegregation, 'the elimination of laws under which people are separated'...comes from Latin sēgregāre, 'to part from the flock.' Though segregation is often contrasted with its rhyming opposite integration, the two are unrelated.

"Instead, integration ultimately comes from Latin integer, 'untouched, undivided, whole.' Desegregation was first recorded in English in the early 1950s."

This took me back to a piece I published for the 40th anniversary of @dallasschools' desegregation in 2011.

Not the main oral history piece for @Advocate_ED, which @JerryLEADS tells me he references constantly, even though he had (and still has) so many questions of how the piece came together and how I chose the interviewees, who were almost all white.

lakewood.advocatemag.com/a-gray-matter/

Instead, this was a "cutting room floor" kind of piece — something that didn't quit fit into the main story but still warranted publishing. The title, quite simply, was "The difference between integration and desegregation."

lakewood.advocatemag.com/the-difference…

A lot of people don't know the history of Dallas' desegregation. And it's even less known that the federal courts not only ordered Dallas to desegregate in 1971 — 10 years earlier in 1961, they ordered Dallas to integrate.

The difference? Transitive and intransitive verbs.

At least, that's what the late Robert H. Thomas explained to me. He represented Dallas ISD for the greater part of the 33-year court case, and told me that, at least in legal terms, integration left things unchanged, while desegregation forced change.

smu.edu/News/2020/SMU-…

That short and sweet piece is worth a read, especially on this 62nd anniversary of the Black 6yo who "integrated" an all-white school in New Orleans.

#HowWeHeal #RubyBridges #RubyBridgesWalkToSchoolDay

calendar.eji.org/racial-injusti…