A book on this year’s Notable Books list from the Library of Michigan tackles the history around a landmark Supreme Court case originating in Michigan that limited the scope of school desegregation in the North.
Milliken v. Bradley could have led to radical and precedent-setting school integration not only in Detroit’s majority Black schools but the majority white suburbs surrounding the city. But the Supreme Court ruled in the other direction.
Michelle Adams is a University of Michigan law professor and the author of "The Containment: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North.”
"Most people when they think about school desegregation, they think about Brown v. Board of Education. Everybody has heard of that case. And when they have an image in their mind of government-based race segregation, they think about Jim Crow and segregated water fountains and all of that," she said.
"One of the reasons why this case is so important is because it dealt with the other Jim Crow, the Jim Crow that was happening in the North that not so many folks are aware of."
Adams says even though she grew up in Detroit throughout some of the time that this case was playing out, it's not something she was aware of as a child.
Writing the book gave her an opportunity to learn more about the people involved in case and their work to move past state-mandated segregation.
"What I try to say in the book is look at the people who came from different backgrounds, Black and white, who were really invested in the idea that we should have integrated schools. Why did they do that? Why did they think that was important, and what would the knock-on effects have been with respect to both our schools and our neighborhoods?"
She says things might not have completely changed if urban and suburban schools in Detroit were ordered to integrate together in the 1970s, but it could have been a chance for progress.
"It would have given us a better opportunity, I think, to move us in a direction of having a more integrated and more unified United States of America."
Interview Highlights
On the importance of the case
One of the reasons why this case is so important is because it dealt with the other Jim Crow, the Jim Crow that was happening in the North that not so many folks are aware of. They don't know how it worked. And so, one of the things my book does is explain that we had basically a nationwide system of Jim Crow, but it had different regional variations. One was in the North, and the Milliken v. Bradley case, which is what my book is about, really goes into a lot of depth about that.
On the argument being made for integration across Metro Detroit
What they were fighting for, in this case, was the idea to have meaningful desegregation in the North, just as we had at least an opportunity to attempt to try to have meaningful desegregation in the South. And it turned out because of the way that the North is structured in our county system, and we have lots of little, tiny school districts, and in the South, we oftentimes have more county-wide school districts that in order to have meaningful desegregation in the North, that would mean that we'd be drawing in both suburban school students and city school students.
On what the present would have looked like if Detroit's city schools and suburban schools were integrated
What I try to say in the book is look at the people who came from different backgrounds, Black and white, who were really invested in the idea that we should have integrated schools. Why did they do that? Why did they think that was important, and what would the knock-on effects have been with respect to both our schools and our neighborhoods? And it would have given us a better opportunity, I think, to move us in a direction of having a more integrated and more unified United States of America.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: A book on this year’s Notable Books list from the Library of Michigan tackles the history around a landmark Supreme Court case originating in Michigan that limited the scope of school desegregation in the North.
Milliken v. Bradley could have led to radical and precedent-setting school integration not only in Detroit’s majority Black schools but the majority white suburbs surrounding the city. But the Supreme Court ruled in the other direction.
Michelle Adams is a University of Michigan law professor and the author of "The Containment: Detroit, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North.” She joins us now. Thank you for being here.
Michelle Adams: Great to be here.
Saliby: Why is this case important when it comes to school integration in the North, where segregation hadn't been mandated explicitly by law?
Adams: It's important for a lot of reasons, but let's focus on the first one, which is that most people when they think about school desegregation, they think about Brown v. Board of Education. Everybody has heard of that case. And when they have an image in their mind of government-based race segregation, they think about Jim Crow and segregated water fountains and all of that.
So, one of the reasons why this case is so important is because it dealt with the other Jim Crow, the Jim Crow that was happening in the North that not so many folks are aware of. They don't know how it worked. And so, one of the things my book does is explain that we had basically a nationwide system of Jim Crow, but it had different regional variations. One was in the North, and the Milliken v. Bradley case, which is what my book is about, really goes into a lot of depth about that.
Saliby: You were growing up in Detroit as parts of this case played out, the later parts of this case. Was this something you were aware of as a child that was kind of happening in the background of your life?
Adams: No idea. And I think that's part of the reason why it was such a wonderful project to work on because I assume most people started out the way I did. They didn't know it was going on, and it was an opportunity for me to pivot and tell an amazing story that was really broadly accessible.
I went to school in the suburbs, didn't know it was happening in Detroit, didn't know it was going to it was going to end up being this amazing historic case.
Saliby: You talked about teaching this case, in your classes and introducing it to students, but is there anything new you learned, as you did research specifically for this book?
Adams: There are many things that I learned that were new. One was sort of the thing I alluded to initially, which was I learned more about how northern Jim Crow operated.
But what I think I really didn't understand was all of the personalities and all of the background and all of the people who were sort of struggling to try to figure out a way together sort of in the context of our democracy, as to how to best move forward after having had a long period of time of state-mandated segregation, whether it was the North or the South.
And so, I didn't really know all the personalities and the people and the judge and the transformation and the struggle really, to try to have, you know, basically Brown v. Board of Education be effective in the North.
Saliby: For our listeners, you wrote a whole book about this case, but can you kind of tie down the central argument that the NAACP, these parents were making about racial segregation that was happening in Detroit that wasn't on the books, but was happening?
Adams: So, here's the argument. The idea is, is if the Supreme Court had said that if the state required segregation in the schools that the appropriate remedy for that would be meaningful desegregation and to give students of all races an opportunity to go to school together.
And so, what they were fighting for, in this case, was the idea to have meaningful desegregation in the North, just as we had at least an opportunity to attempt to try to have meaningful desegregation in the South.
And it turned out because of the way that the North is structured in our county system, and we have lots of little, tiny school districts, and in the South, we oftentimes have more county-wide school districts that in order to have meaningful desegregation in the North, that would mean that we'd be drawing in both suburban school students and city school students. But that was consistent with Brown v. Board of Education, and that was what this case was all about.
Saliby: Now that we're in 2026, this case is decades old. Is it worth speculating where we'd be today if the Supreme Court had ruled in the other direction to back this massive metropolitan integration plan that incorporated the suburbs?
Adams: Well, I think you have to be careful and say, well, everything would have been different, and we would have all been singing Kumbaya, and all of our racial problems would have been solved if the Supreme Court had gone 5-4 in the other direction.
I think what I try to say in the book is look at the people who came from different backgrounds, Black and white, who were really invested in the idea that we should have integrated schools. Why did they do that? Why did they think that was important, and what would the knock-on effects have been with respect to both our schools and our neighborhoods?
And it would have given us a better opportunity, I think, to move us in a direction of having a more integrated and more unified United States of America.
Saliby: Michelle Adams is a University of Michigan law professor and the author of "The Containment," which appears on this year's Notable Books list from the Library of Michigan. Thank you for joining us.
Adams: Thank you for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
