We Can Do It: A Community Takes on the Challenge of School Desegregation.

• Author: Siara, Lyndsey E.
• Position: Book review

Concluding that separate is never equal, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision gave no guidance on how to integrate schools. Two decades of slow progress followed. Published in 2018, We Can Do It: A Community Takes on the Challenge of School Desegregation, offers a detailed, holistic account of school desegregation between 1965-1973, the crucial inflection point in Southern public education. Underscoring the community benefit to strong public schools, attorney turned author Michael T. Gengler recounts Alachua County's challenges in working toward full integration.

Dense for the average reader, the book brings greater insight into the logistical, administrative, and personal struggles to achieve school desegregation. Directing profits to an education foundation, Gengler provides a valuable resource, particularly for a local history buff or subject-matter expert. Personal accounts paint a vivid picture of what it was like to live through the trials and triumphs of the time. Most astonishing were student accounts. Considered the pawns of school desegregation, few understood at the time that the court, not school boards, initiated desegregation. Yet, when students were entrusted with decisions about how to successfully integrate their schools, they found workable solutions; a promising outlook for tomorrow's troubles.

Located in Alachua County is the University of Florida, for which the county's public education system provided a staff recruiting and retention tool. Reportedly slow to respond to the changing environment, its College of Education was described as a "villain" throughout school desegregation efforts. While the repetitive and non-linear presentation is confused at times, Gengler's opinion-neutral presentation allows readers to form their own conclusions. Significantly, desegregation led to the closing of most black schools. White schools became the model for...