Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Michael Frank Miles received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Michigan State University. He lives in Evanston, Illinois. Since retiring as a teacher at Evanston Township High School, he has written several books, Perspectives in Black and White being his first, originally published in 2008. A year later came the follow-up, Perspectives in Black and White Book Two: Connecting White Culture with the Black Experience. His third book is a collection of short biographies called The Music That Defined A Century. He has two adult children and three granddaughters. Read More
Perspectives in Black and White
November 15, 2021
Trade paperback
$20.00
A concise history of Evanston’s struggle to rid itself of segregation and racism. (2nd Edition)
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Michael Frank Miles
Author
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“Reported within the context of momentous events that impacted and shaped race relations at the national level, Perspectives in Black and White captures a collage of Evanston’s African American stories, weaving together powerful narratives and historical facts. A must-read for anyone who wants to create and live in a racially just community.”
Summary
Perspectives in Black and White explores the events that shaped the contemporary racial makeup of a large, representative, and integrated Northern suburban community—Evanston, Illinois.
The story touches on a hundred years of Evanston’s history with the focus centering on the impact of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions—Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and Brown v. Topeka Board of Education (1954)—and shows how a city, and nation, grasped the significance of these two decisions; the first gave legal sanction to segregation, the second nullified it in the public schools. The establishment and, decades later, the dismantling of segregation carries through several generations and reflects attitudes that were common in their time. The first period covered the Great Migration between world wars; the second period, mass civil rights protests in Southern and, later, Northern states during the 1950s and 1960s. The impact that national events had upon Evanston is drawn from three catalysts who brought about change—one a national figure, Martin Luther King Jr., and two prominent local leaders, Edwin Jourdain and Gregory Coffin.
As the vestiges of racism continue to underlie the relations between blacks and whites, the intent of this book is to place history in front of us so that we can avoid doing what we have done for so long.