BOUND FOR FREEDOM.

By Neil V. Sullivan with Thomas L. Maynard '29 andCarol L. Yellin. Boston: Little, Brownand Company, 1965. 221 pp. $5.50.

In 1959, the Board of Supervisors of Prince Edward County in Virginia defied a federal court order to desegregate its public schools by failing to appropriate tax funds for these schools. The white children of this county continued their education in the private Prince Edward Academy, but all of the Negro school children except the few who were sent to neighboring counties became the only children in the western hemisphere to be denied elementary and high school education. After four long years of this intolerable situation, the late President Kennedy asked his brother, then Attorney General of the U.S., somehow to reestablish free schooling for the Negro children of Prince Edward County. This book describes this remarkable feat.

Neil V. Sullivan, senior author of Boundfor Freedom, became superintendent of the Prince Edward Free School Association. Coauthor Thomas L. Maynard '29, Sullivan's long-time friend, became vice principal of the Free Schools' Moton High School. The Association was initiated by the federal government, sponsored by the State of Virginia with former Governor Colgate Darden as chairman of the Board of Trustees, and financed by contributions from private citizens and teachers throughout the country, philanthropic foundations, industrial corporations, and numerous gifts in kind. Although the Free School Association was founded a mere month prior to the projected opening date, a system involving nearly 1600 pupils in several schools was miraculously reactivated on schedule with a new faculty of 100. And the eagerness of the children to learn, coupled with the dedication fervor, imagination, and courage of the teachers resulted in an education of which any school district in this country might have been proud. .

This fascinating account is written with intelligence, modesty, and historical perspective It « generously illustrated with many Client photographs. But its mam contribution I think, lies in the truisms which it reawakens the plight of southern education for Negroes; the unbelievable importance of free education and the demoralization and waste of human talent which quickly ensue when this right is denied; by implication, the noble calling of the public school teacher; the bigotry everywhere, including the North finally the compassionate conscience and courage of principled white Virginians who contributed time and money - and in the rarest instances, their children — to this righteous enterprise.

Associate Professor of Physiology

A physician, teacher, and medical researcher, reviewer Valtin also has been anenergetic leader and participant in civilrights programs.