Race and Place

What social and community changes prompted Hall's visit to the white cathedral?

Tracie Hall was growing up during an era of segregation. In an effort to desegregate, schools at that time would bus children from all black or white schools, to schools of the opposite race. "It was on of those "let's pretend to be pro-integration" exercises that post-Brown v. Board of Education schools engaged in back then." Hall was brought to see the white cathedral to try and expose her and her African American peers to the "white" side of town. On the tail end of the segregation era in the South, the government was attempting to integrate by simply exposing people to the other way of life. In Hall's case, it ended up backfiring, when she returned to the library and was so turned off that she didn't even take out a book.