Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Each morning, 10 yellow school buses end their circuit through Montclair, New Jersey, 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. Ali'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.
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