Of Note: Looking Back to Look Forward

Transforming the Elite: Black Students and the Desegregation of Private Schools by Michelle Purdy
University of North Carolina Press, September 24, 2018

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In her expansive history of The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Michelle Purdy tells a story that should resonate with independent school educators. Woven amidst an intense national policy landscape are the compelling narratives of the first students to desegregate Westminster. These stories stand out for the humanity they evoke, as well as for the chilling reminder that much of what they describe could happen in our schools today. Purdy (herself an independent school graduate who identifies as African American) describes the complex choice made by the families of these children as they sought the best in education, knowing the racism they would encounter as the first Black students in the school. Her explication of the complexity of the Westminster environment, one which professed to want integration while maintaining racist policies and practices, is ever-present and without question evokes our current state of affairs in private schools. All private school teachers, leaders, and aspiring leaders should read this book, not only for the history it provides about our schools, but also as a concrete reminder of the ways in which many of our institutions maintain racist structures held over from the pre-Brown vs. Board of Education world. In her epilogue, Purdy ties her analysis of this history to critical race theory, in particular, Derrick Bell's notion of "interest convergence." Private schools purporting to do equity work should be prepared to examine this idea, and Purdy's book paves an exceptional introductory path.