Publisher's Synopsis
"Issues of race, history, and culture simmer just below the surface of our everyday lives. Few take the time to talk - calmly and rationally - about how we, as Americans, can reconcile the past to build a common future using logic, reason, and data. How do well-meaning people help a community move beyond its past when confronted by people who hold ingrained stereotypes, profit from maintaining the status quo, or are filled with antipathy toward one another? This book tells the story of how one man tried to do just that when he led the first non-court ordered consolidation of an historically black university with an historically white two-year college in southwest Georgia in 2016. Art Dunning came of age in southwest Alabama when the country had laws that separated blacks and whites in almost all aspects of life. The values instilled in him by his family and those in his close-knit community, together with life experiences through educat
