Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity by Laura Meckler asks the question: Is it possible to set out to create a truly integrated town and succeed?
Meckler was raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, so her interest is natural, even if the circumstances she writes about are before her time. Because she is an award-winning journalist, she does the research and asks the right questions.
Among them, if the people of the town are making the effort to integrate the town, why are there still disparities in income, education, and achievement? Were the people of Shaker Heights complacent? Did they underestimate the social and systemic forces they were battling? It’s hard to say.
But Dream Town provides many insights. Meckler digs into the town’s history, interviews residents, and examines the issues to come up with this compelling account that leaves most questions unanswered.
I received this Advanced Reader Copy of Dream Town from Henry Holt & Co. and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher’s Description
Can a group of well-intentioned people fulfill the promise of racial integration in America?
In this searing and intimate examination of the ideals and realities of racial integration, award-winning Washington Post journalist Laura Meckler tells the story of a decades-long pursuit in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and uncovers the roadblocks that have threatened progress time and again—in housing, in education, and in the promise of shared community.
In the late 1950s, Shaker Heights began groundbreaking work that would make it a national model for housing integration. And beginning in the seventies, it was known as a crown jewel in the national move to racially integrate schools. The school district built a reputation for academic excellence and diversity, serving as a model for how white and Black Americans can thrive together. Meckler—herself a product of Shaker Heights—takes a deeper look into the place that shaped her, investigating its complicated history and its ongoing challenges in order to untangle myth from truth. She confronts an enduring, and troubling, question—if Shaker Heights has worked so hard at racial equity, why does a racial academic achievement gap persist?
In telling the stories of the Shakerites who have built and lived in this community, Meckler asks: What will it take to fulfill the promise of racial integration in America? What compromises are people of all races willing to make? What does success look like, and has Shaker achieved it? The result is a complex and masterfully reported portrait of a place that, while never perfect, has achieved more than most and a road map for communities that seek to do the same.
