How the Civil Rights Movement Shaped Us In 1963, School of
Communication Professor Russell Williams was enjoying a
comfortable childhood in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of
Benning Heights, a primarily black community. By then, the D.C.
public schools had been integrated, as had the military, the
federal work force, and public accommodations around the city.
Black people made up more than 50 percent of D.C.’s population.
Still, the races tended to keep their distance. When Williams
and his classmates were transferred from a mostly black
elementary school to a white one in an effort to further
integrate schools, the impact was immeasurable. He remembers it
as one of the most pivotal moments of his youth. "It gave me the
opportunity to sit with white kids and ask about their lives. I
thought their lives were just like they were on Leave It to
Beaver or My Three Sons," Williams said. "I could now have a
dialogue with a community of people I had never talked with
before." Fifty years ago, Washington, D.C., w