Focus on the Dream

Published November 1, 1998

In the 35 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. voiced his dream of America rising up and living out the true meaning of its creed, the dream of racial integration has been replaced by an acquiescence to racial isolation, according to a new book by Manhattan Institute fellow Tamar Jacoby.

In Someone Else’s House: America’s Unfinished Struggle for Integration (Free Press, 614 pages, $30), Jacoby relates how the dream of integration got sidetracked into racial alienation in Atlanta, Detroit, and New York.

Jacoby’s proposals for moving forward to the goal of integration include overhauling the public schools, so that blacks graduate with the skills necessary to compete in today’s workplace. She also calls for replacing diversity training and multicultural awareness in schools and the workplace with efforts to emphasize what people have in common, rather than their differences.