Where southerners have all around them the trappings of slavery and segregation and something to unload, a burden to unload. Worse people in the north, particularly white northerners dont think of their round paths are their own heritage in that way. In fact, they think of it as something to about two, something to aspire to. That is what i mean about the sense of history at the beginning and the first story that i start out with as you said is about springfield, massachusetts. That city is a small city in massachusetts about 150,000. In 1939, just as world war ii was starting, the later said that city and School Superintendents pioneer plan they said would abolish prejudice and abolish racism. From the School System and from the city of large. So they adopted the curriculum and these principles with the highminded goal of eradicating from young peoples minds racism. He came upon it on their own or did something push them to a . Well, they drew upon curriculum being developed by a bunch of professors at columbia teachers college, which went along with the broader movements towards teaching pluralism basically in the world war i to world war ii. Why did they care . Part of why they cared or in world war ii bus because the threat of racism from blair is not many seemed so real and tangible on one hand. This is the northeasterners in massachusetts and new york. So they saw overseas this terrible threat of fascism and nazism below the masondixon line or southern segregation and northeasterners pictured themselves and this is what my book is about, the northeast massachusetts new york, connecticut, the area that pictured itself as the land of racial progress and tolerance and political liberalism. I think what you are getting up by the president of around the board was the adults had, where Kenneth Clarke famously postcode your book is full of great names. The names that have been forgotten. Guest Kenneth Clarke come up in a social psychologist, africanamerican from harlem who pioneered this way of studying the effects of segregation upon schoolchildren. His most famous test became renowned during the brown v. Board case where he was the star witness for the naacp and for thurgood marshall. So what clark did was he went into segregated Public Schools and he did a test on children where his two instruments were tossed. A white doll in a brown doll. Host Public Schools in the south . And integrated schools in the north . Guest the interesting thing that my book brings out is the precursor story in the north where clark began his test in springfield in 1939 and the idea was to pick springfield because it was supposed to be the model of the integrated School System. He was the home of the springfield plan, the program i was describing. So clark chose springfield at this northern testing ground to contrast with the segregated south. He would later talk about segregated south on the brown v. Board witness, but his test in the north and so the result of the test was that he would ask black children about the dolphin he would say, give me the doll that looks like you. Give me the doll that looks pretty. Give me the doll that you want to be friends with her things along that line. Without a doubt, a vast majority of them would associate the white doll with a positive association and feeling than they would associate they would pick the brown doll when the question i asked them, you know, something make it a spirit clark argued concluded from that that black children on a very young age authority internalized these feelings of inferiority, what he called the badge of inferiority, which the Supreme Court host is there a difference between the southern black child in the so card integrated schools in terms of their inferiority based on that test. Guest the fascinating thing was there was a difference, but not what we might expect. The difference was the children in springfield in fact usually pick a white doll at a higher rate than the children in arkansas or south carolina. That is the northern black children and supposedly integrated schools seem to have seemed to be associating the white doll even more readily with these positive characteristics. But clark argued that didnt mean that his conclusion was not necessarily that these northern children were the more traumatized or more scarred by segregation. In fact, clark said that, you know, he used all these quotes from them with the children were clearly in torment when they had to pick the white doll and they realized that they werent white, black child in the north would say this is me. But i went and got a tan at the beach. Guest or they would try to explain away the fact of their race. Host the southern black child would accept a black doll. He accepted the fact that he used the word, thats the southern black. Guest said this was the argument that southern black children therefore accepted fabrication with much less inner turmoil or outward torment and that the northern children were wrestling with their decisions of which doll to pick, much more expressively and emotionally. So clark took that to mean that northern children had not accepted their condition and the segregated society to the same degree that southern children had. Host the bottom line be northern black children in southern black children were all damaged. Guest they all were. This is the later psychologists would argue that when Northern Schools came under the light of Court Decisions and when the naacp attempted to litigate northern segregation. Psychologists say look, the effect on black children in quote, unquote integrated schools or schools that just are de facto segregation was the term for the segregation in the north. Later psychologists would say the damage was the same. Host what was the big deal about the brown keyboard of education . Guest what was the big deal . The big deal with the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was in itself unconstitutional. That is separate but equal in Public Schools. But i was a big deal. Just go it was a big deal at the time. 1954 were southern political leaders rose up in massive resistance. They believe in segregation. Guest a lot of Northern Leaders on the brown keyboard of education decision came down in 1954, they believe that mandate did not apply. For instance, new York City Schools certainly had a high instance of segregation. Started awesome schools. They mandated brown keyboard really only apply to those School Systems where the sister of segregation was on the books as mandating separate but equal board the north it was something not quite as explicit but were the result was still off in the same. Host but there is also something odd about brown v. Board of education. Declaring Public Schools unconstitutional. The Supreme Court did something. Number one, the basis for this decision is not, but we say social science. Studies about the effects for irrigation on the children. They used 11 as the basis for their decision for the clearing Public Schools that were segregated unconstitutional. That was a big deal because a lot of people, social scientists said what was the court doing . Guest wasnt grounded in the precedent of legal history soma as it was grounded in Kenneth Clarks findings. Host the second thing it did not do is provide evidence. It waited a whole year for the Supreme Court decision. Usually they find a constitutional violation. The court said youve got to provide revenue. But they didnt do that. Gusto now, in fact they waited until 1955 in which the court released the ruling known as brown two. That ruling famously said that he segregation in the south had to occur with all delivery speed and white southerners interpreted that as meaning of that could occur on whatever timeline they wished. Host as you alluded, Kenneth Clarke is now deceased, that he was one of my two mentors in my life. Kenneth clark had great hope for brown v. Board of education, but he also this was not what we say what his study said. Public schools not only harmed the intellectual and Psychological Development of black children, but also harmed white children. But the court never said anything about that. In his other life he kept saying that to anybody who asked him was you could not delay any sign of delay from the court to implement their decision would be merely emboldened and encourage the opposition. Just go right. The reality was particularly in the rural south Public School student desegregate until 1969, 70 with alexander v. Holmes county. You know, many schools in the north remained beyond the reach of brown as they thought up until the 1970s and we know what happened in boston at that point. Host is in springfield that they were beyond or did they have more enlightened disposition about bringing black and white Children Together quiet they thought too they were different from the south. Guest the interesting thing is that he thought they had a more enlightened disposition and they often did. This did not out up to integration. They pride disaggregation on the ground in the schools and in the neighborhoods. Just at the same time as the city leaders pioneered the plan to radically racism for white minds. So what he found in the north, what i found in the north could have followed the people, white worker who prided themselves on a sort of racial progressivism, prided themselves on eating colorblind. At the same time, we are deeply committed in the policies to segregation in the schools and in the neighborhood. We found in springfield, for instance, they had to fend off a case from the naacp in 1964. The case was called arc steel versus Springfield School committee. This is where the naacp, under the leadership of Robert Carter and lewis steele filed a suit against the Springfield Schools and send your schools are segregated here just as segregated as any others. It doesnt matter that you have this plan to eradicate racism and it doesnt matter that you are forward thinking people. Your schools are still segregated and it got to do something about it. Host your book focuses on the progressive spirit talks about the differences in the attitude of the liberals. They really have good intentions that would lead to segregation and thats the way of the school. And you quote very famous speakers, famous to people who know history. He talked about james potter and, for example. I havent heard James Baldwins name for many years. He used to be a social analyst and all the liberals, but all the liberals the north is no different from the south except that and he and i lots of love rules and your book talks about that and demonstrate that in many, many ways. Guest one of the things that i found really fascinating when i decided to tackle the subject of race in the northeast and my first book was on white southerners. So i started the project back in 2006 and i tried to study race in the northeast. Ive found that most books on race in the north either called it at the south, that is the boston crisis might as well have been mississippi in the studies. They were the same the ties the gross racism exhibited. On one hand. On the other hand, you had a lot of books actually for trade the north is the land of the liberty, as a place without jim crow laws and without a long history of lynching and with a lesser history of secession and slavery. But i found that something in the middle was much more truthful, that you had to write a book about the ambiguities of northern race relations. You had to write a book that honored the northeast claims to progressivism and its realities of racial segregation at the same time and that war between those traditions, that conflict, that duality was at the heart of northeastern race relations. Host your book is very sophisticated. But it also reminded me of malcolm max. Malcolm x says there is no such thing as the south. Its america. It reminded me of poly marriage and even your quote from James Baldwin reminded me of the polly murray quote. The sons of slave traders still deal in doubletalk that they swap the selling block from canada when counts. I have swapped for spelling blocks from endo and guns. I wrote those words and i was quite young. Those words came back as i was reading your book. How did it happen that blacks didnt come to new york as you say. Blacks came to harlem. They didnt go to chicago. How did it happen . Guest in world war i, they have the secondgrade migration during world war ii and the years afterwards. They come to a place like new york city. Where they had relatives and they went fine that there were any places to live in harlem. Harlem had comcast in a way. So a lot of them trickle down to brooklyn. That is where they met with the blockbusting realtor who is not quite late the blockbusting realtor with the north analogy to the southern billy club wielding sheriff. That is the north didnt have the youth oldtimer types really went out with fire hoses and attack dogs in the street. The north has something harder to see a more insidious, which was a system of faithbased practices and housing covenants and stonewalling banks. The system of economic and sometimes politics that would corral africanamericans in certain neighborhoods and keep them there. In fact come you can also see the lines of cells change over the years to envelop whatever africanamericans have gone through. So as the neighborhood expanded as black people expanded to the outskirts of the neighborhood, city leaders simply change the definition of the neighborhood. Host some people have a different view of the blockbuster, of violence in the north. For example, there is a long period of history of Police Brutality and misconduct, which we would get to later on. Dont forget we have to get to the current country. But the blockbuster you scare tac tics. They wouldnt scare the wiped off the block. The blacks are coming here the blacks are coming. Your Property Value will go down. People who were racist or said they were racist guys scared. Host that was an article of faith. They thought that their real estate values will plummet if africanamericans came onto their block. One thing i try to do what i tell the story come of the of how bedford became basically this ghetto as polly murray called it. It happened in the seniors and Jackie Robinson was playing on the dodgers. You can see right in the heart of brooklyns vituperative story is going going on at the same time. Brooklynites welcoming Jackie Robinson and birdied or him on one hand and on the other, you know, have been frightened of moving in or a lot of a lot of people no doubt in this oneday move move to bay ridge. And even to Staten Island across the water. Host a lot of people refer to as white flight. Guest basically. Host those were the years when whites were discovering blacks. And they never made any. They were destined and not changed a lot of peoples minds because Jackie Robinson became a symbol that blacks could play baseball and had talent. Blacks could see. Not only just athletes. He was a scholar. He was an academic. He went to the colleges that were weaker is. So that is when a lot of ways, whether conservatives or liberals change their attitudes are adopted a new attitude because of jackie robbins, which was a breakthrough. Except when Jackie Robinson makes that plain. Post go he went to brooklyn on a league team, which was up in canada. Montreal. He was beloved by many fans in montreal. There is a famous line where they hope the Montreal Team to win a championship and he was mobbed by weight canadians and the first time i does love instead of a peer that is how the story goes. Host was that the thing when he went to massachusetts . Guest the first team to sign Jackie Robinson was the red . They have a chance in 1945 right after world war ii. He had his tryouts at the park. The way he got to try out was a city counselor in boston named isidore but said that he was going to well, the story is the boston Baseball Team in order to play games on sundays, and they needed this equate to get a waiver from the city council because there are laws against playing games on wednesdays. He was going to refuse to go further waiver unless one of the boston teams gave africanamerican players a fair trial. And so, this brought Jackie Robinson along with a couple of other africanamerican ballplayers to fenway park. He was of course great in the tryout. He last speeches to the Green Monster on the base path and never got a call back. And boston flopped on its face when i had the chance to integrate is filed into sign Jackie Robinson. It would be two more years before brooklyn sees the chance. It host thats exactly what they did as i recall from the book. They try to teach tolerance. The early experiment in teaching tolerance and understanding our acceptance in terms of different races. This is called the springfield plan is the name that went by. It was pioneered by the superintendent of schools, a guy by the name of john graham red came through columbias Teacher College and try to implement this plan. So the idea was to have a curriculum that would teach about all races and ethnicities and nationalities in the early 1940s a public School System taught about reconstruction as a time of interracial democracy and not about some nightmare in which blacks for the south. That was downrig