Building Partnerships to Hear Freedom's Heroes Within Our Community

Each morning, 10 yellow school buses end their circuit through Montclair, NewJersey, to drop off 149 of Renaissance Middle School's 225 students. Ali, grandson of Charles and Marjorie Baskerville, is among the group of students who arrive by bus. Al's grandparents with other community activists, almost forty years ago, began the long and hard fight for school integration in this northern town. After court battles, parent meetings, community resistance, and ultimate victory, the struggle resulted in a public school system dedicated to both choice and integration. To those who retain the memory of struggle, Montclair's school buses and their routes, almost thirty years old, are a regular reminder of the magnet school plan implemented during the 1977-1978 school year. Bernadette Anand is currently a program director and instructor in the graduate division of Bank Street College. She is the founder of Renaissance Middle School a small school located within the Montclair, New Jersey, Magnet School District, the setting for the oral history project described here. Bernadette is a proponent of detracking based on inclusive pedagogy and rich academic experiences for all students.