Description

Copy of text to be included on the cover of Virgil Blossom's book " It Has Happened Here." Front of jacket copy for IT HAS HAPPENED HERE by Virgil T. Blossom The former Superintendent of Schodis in Little Rock, Arkansas, reveals how a law-abiding American city, striving to solve a harsh and complex problem by democratic means, was demoralized and dominated by certain power-hungry men coldly exploj_ ting the passions of their neighbors. *********************** Preliminary description of IT HAS HAPPENED HERE Around the broad-shouldered figure of Virgil T o Blosser burst the full violence of the school. segrega tion conflict which shattered the public peace, divided the nation and gave comfort to our enemies. In his capacity as Superin- tendent of Schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr. o Blossom was, for more than four years, the storm center around whom the controversy raged. In the first place he is an educa.tor and school adriinistrator - not only by profession but by cormmitment. Because he is an educator and neither a poli- tician nor a proselytizer he sees the school segregation issue in profoundly practical terms -- not as a focus for contradictory passions, nor even a.s an over- arching philosophical problem but as a question which intimately and explicitly affects the policy and day-to-day detail of public education in the South. Sur- rounded by fanatics he is a man dedicated to the rational and the real. In the second place he is, by temperarnent and conviction, a moderate. As a...

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Land of (Unequal) Opportunity

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University of Arkansas