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50 years ago in 1976, Raleigh City Schools and Wake County Schools became one. But the merger was anything but inevitable, and creating one school system was not the same as desegregating its schools.

In this episode we revisit the struggles over race, geography, and political power that shaped the Wake County Public School System. Through interviews with local experts like Carmen Wimberley Cauthen, Dr. Karey Harwood, and others, alongside archival voices including Vernon Malone, Bob Bridges, John Murphy, and Mary Gentry, we explore the resistance, compromises, and unlikely alliances behind its creation.

From the fight for desegregation to student reassignment and the rise of magnet schools, Wake's history reveals how a contested merger helped lay the foundation for one of the nation's most celebrated public school systems; recognized for it's academic excellence, innovation, and its efforts to provide educational opportunity across lines of race and class.

Yet Wake's remarkable achievements have never erased the tensions and inequities that shaped its beginnings.

50 years later, as private school vouchers and other forms of corporate privatization challenge the idea of public schools as a shared public good, Wake's history offers a powerful reminder of what public education can accomplish and what we stand to lose.

It's a story about where we've been, how we got here, and a question that remains unfinished: Who are public schools ultimately for?

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Seventy years after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment: How far have we truly come? While our schools today are more diverse than ever, recent studies reveal a harsh reality—they're still deeply segregated.

Educational equity is not just an ideal; it's both an outcome and an action that we've made real progress on before. And today, as in the past, those victories are never foregone conclusions; it takes ordinary people who take extraordinary measures to see that all of us live up to the values we say we’re about.

In this episode, we sit down with some of Raleigh's Trailblazers whose stories of resilience and advocacy offer both inspiration and direction for our ongoing efforts to dismantle the predictability of racialized outcomes in our schools.

Special thanks to Joe Holt Jr, Gloria Hunter, Deborah Holt Noel, Larry Manuel, Sarah Thuesen, Paul Pope, Briana Pelton, Ainsley Powell, Cheryl Crooms Williams, The City of Raleigh Museum, The Historic Turner House Foundation, and The Friends of Oberlin Village. Music is provided by Blue Dot Sessions. The theme song, "Mirrors," is by Joseph McDade.

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Join host Keiyonna Dubashi as she sits down with Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock of We Are (Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education) and how she is thinking about what it will take to move our institutions in North Carolina toward more anti-racist outcomes, particularly in our schools.

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We’re doing something a little different for the next few episodes. I’ll be stepping aside while my friend Keiyonna Dubashi, founder of Profound Ladies, temporarily hosts the podcast and shares some conversations from the Profound Ladies Equity Pledge series that took place last spring. Profound Ladies is dedicated to recruiting and retaining Black and Indigenous Women of Color and equipping them with the mentorship, leadership, and career development pathways necessary for them to succeed, grow, and thrive. Prior to the Brown V. Board, 35-50% of teachers — and an equivalent percentage of principals — were Black, particularly in the south. Today, that number is only about 6% nationwide. Organizations like Profound Ladies have set out to change that.

In the wake of the Brown decision and the subsequent desegregation efforts, over 40,000 African American teachers and school leaders lost their jobs. That’s because desegregation has always occurred at the pace of white comfort.

In the first of the series, Keiyonna sits down with Dr. Jerry Wilson of CREED (Center for Racial Equity In Education). They talk through the current state of education, what it will take to confront how we got to where we are today, and how we can join in solidarity with efforts happening right now to close the gap between our values and our actions.

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions. The theme song mirrors is by Joseph McDade.

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All instruction is culturally responsive. The question is: to whose culture is it responsive? The idea that public schools should focus on nothing but "the basics" of reading, writing, and arithmetic is not only wrong morally, but it's wrong scientifically too, because the research is crystal-clear: feeling seen, safe, and affirmed in the classroom is literally a prerequisite for learning anything else. In this episode, Bria Wright joins as co-host and we dive into identity and how we can tap into our own as well as those of our students to become more culturally and community-responsive in our practice. Special guest Dr. Erica Buchanan-Rivera, author of the book Identity Affirming Classrooms: Spaces That Center Humanity joins to ground our conversation in the research and also her personal experience as an educator and director of equity for Washington Township Schools, a district on the outskirts of Indianapolis, Indiana. Thanks also to Dr. Jeff Duncan Andrade and Dr. Fabienne Ducet for contributing as well.

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions, the theme song Mirrors is by Joseph McDade.

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Asian Americans have long occupied a precarious position in American society; they are just as likely to be valorized as the so-called "model minority" as they are ostracized and seen as perpetual foreigners. During this episode, we take a deep dive into how we got here, and provide perspectives on ways teachers need to see, understand, and interrupt anti-asian stereotypes. We'll hear from local Asian American students, parents, and educators at Hortons Creek Elementary in NC to get their perspective on how schools can and should become more culturally and community responsive in order to better serve all students and families who are part of our community.

Guests include:
Dr. Sandy Chambers - Principal at Hortons Creek Elementary
Supriya Vasudevan - 3rd Grade Teacher at Hortons Creek Elementary
Suruchika Bhatia - Lead IA at Hortons Creek Elementary
Nicki Lee - Counselor at Hortons Creek Elementary
Aravand - High School Student
Navam - Middle School Student
Dr. Nicholas Hartlep - Chair of the Department of Education Studies at Berea College, creator of the Model Minority Stereotype Project
Dr. Chris Suh - Assistant Professor of History at Emory University
Soukprida Phetmisy - National Senior Managing Director, Asian American & Pacific Islander Community Alliances at Teach for America
Jimmy Patel-Nguyen - Communications Director, North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT)
Ricky Leung - Co-founder of NCAAT and Program Director at NCAAT in Action

Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions. The theme song "Mirrors" is by Joseph McDade.

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The Washington School is likely the oldest continually-operating public school in the city of Raleigh, since we can trace it's beginnings all the way back to the 1860s. During Part 1, we learned about the school's origins and the critical community organizing that took place in order to establish Raleigh's first Black High School in 1923. Today, Washington is a Gifted and Talented Magnet Elementary School and the children and staff that fill it's classrooms today look different than they did nearly a hundred years ago.

Join Dr. Chaunte Garrett and Michael Parker West as they dive into the legacies of this important community landmark and confront some important questions that get at the heart of modern magnet schools and the larger unified Wake County Public School System.

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Full Episode drops Tuesday January 11th!