OH+Reflection

Oral History Reflection

Topic- Integration in schools Subject- A.O. Smith (Theresa's grandfather)

When we first started studying this topic I thought tha I knew a lot about it. I had studied the Brown case at my old school and didn't expect to learn anything new. However, once we started learning about it I soon learned how little I actually knew. Then, when we learned about what happened, both Melody and I were shocked at what happened to those innocent people. The oral history project gave us an opportunity to hear someone's point of view that contradicted what was commonly though so feircly. The attempt to integrate schools was a complete failure at first and took more that 20 years to see any progress. It was a slow, painful progress. Even in Wisconsin we struggled with this issue.

Even today, we still feel the impact of school integration. Many people are affected by it whose relatives were involved. It is something that we should always remember. Something that should be heard and seen and understood. Awful as it may be, this point in time is America's past, America's history. We have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.