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The growth of the movement in Wilmington was stimulated by the presence of organizations dedicated to breaking through the suffocating restrictions of paternalism that the white elite of North Carolina and elsewhere deployed to manage the change in the racial order that they were knew they would not be able to stop. The chapter follows three organizations in North Carolina as they promoted their variants of black nationalism and Black Power and struggled to break the gradualist consensus on race liberation: the United Church of Christ’s Commission for Racial Justice, the Wilmington Movement organized by the North Carolina chapter of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student (later Youth) Organization for Black Unity. Bombastic Black Power rhetoric was part of the three organization’s plans, and the idea that emboldening blacks and scaring whites could shake things up and alter the balance of power. But they tested their theories of social change in practice, and it was through that process that the organizations made gains.

Building upon the research of religious educator Evelyn Parker, this chapter traces the causes, signs, and consequences of spiritual fragmentation among African American adolescents. Overwhelmingly, survey data reveal that young people do experience God as loving, active, and transformative. Fragmented spirituality occurs when young people— even and especially those who are highly active in their communities—are unable to imagine how their communal, societal, and political concerns are attended by that same loving, active, and transformative personal God. Sample data of sermons and Sunday school curricula reveal the dearth of attention given in African American churches to young people in helping them interpret and address their experiences and concerns. This contributes to spiritual fragmentations as young people seek resources for interpreting their experiences and concerns outside and apart from the religious arena.

The iced tea and Skittles Trayvon Martin carried home when he was murdered by George Zimmerman in February 2012 in suburban Sanford, Florida, represent an undeniable and terrifying truth: if you happen to be Black, the most basic of activities can get you killed in today’s America. In most cases, the killers walk free. Law enforcement and the legal system muster elaborate rationales, and leaders of the major institutions of the culture look the other way. James Baldwin’s observation is as pertinent today as it was when made in 1962: his countrymen, he recognized soberly, “have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know and do not want to know it.” In the end, almost no law enforcement is held accountable for the routine killings happening on the streets of America. Particularly for young Black citizens, this fact is a blunt daily reminder that for far too many in power, Black lives do not matter. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) and its organizations like the Dream Defenders, BYP100, SONG, and others have put healing and restorative justice at the center of their movement work, as this chapter covers. They try to answer: how can the movement build the best possible futures for Black people? Is abolition the best path? What are others? Through both movement and electoral politics, they seek fresh ways to make government bodies accountable to people at the base.

Covers the rise of Ronald Reagan and a more conservative, individualistic approach to government and society that would have far-reaching effects on Charlotte schools.Explores persisting obstacles to racial advancement, including shifts in job markets, housing patterns and political priorities that perpetuated income and homeownership gaps into the 1980s and 1990s, and sharpened distinctions between struggling central-city neighborhoods and increasingly prosperous suburban communities. Traces the national shift in education priorities from promoting integration to a concern with test scores and an interest in "choice," which led Charlotte's business leaders to promote a desegregation plan focused around magnet schools instead of race-based busing. Examines growing concerns about the performance of African American students in desegregated schools, and about the challenges faced by young black men in urban neighborhoods. Follows the Capacchione lawsuit, which challenged the use of race in student assignment and brought an end to Charlotte's busing plan.