How have power and agency been revealed in educational issues involving minorities? More specifically: how have politicians, policymakers, practitioners, and others in the mainstream used and misused their power in relation to those in the margins? How have those in the margins asserted their agency and negotiated their way within the larger society? What have been the relationships, not only between those more powerful and those less powerful, but also among those on the fringes of society? How have people sought to bridge the gap separating those in the margins and those in the mainstream? The essays in this book respond to these questions by delving into the educational past to reveal minority issues involving ethnicity, gender, class, disability, and sexual identity.

In this major undertaking, civil rights historian Adam Fairclough chronicles the odyssey of black teachers in the South from emancipation in 1865 to integration one hundred years later. A Class of Their Own is indispensable for understanding how blacks and whites interacted after the abolition of slavery, and how black communities coped with the challenges of freedom and oppression.

The story of Franklin County is one of remarkable change and growth over the past 250 years. From its Native American roots, this corner of the eastern Piedmont has become a center for tobacco plantations, textile mills and cotton cultivation. It has seen seminal moments in the history of public education, Methodism and even capital punishment. One governor called Louisburg home, while several more have visited and even presidents have made brief stops. Local historian Eric Medlin narrates the history of one of the most exceptional parts of the great state of North Carolina.