This has been a hell of a read in the leadup to Trump getting re-fucking-elected, and actually starts to show the cracks of the judicial system when it comes to segregation, and does a hell of a job breaking down all the local, state, and national politics that ended up playing out in this particular Supreme Court case, and how it all affected the children who experienced the school systems and their differences. Gives you an idea of what we're about to be in for to some degree for the next four years. (Dr. Adams, I am so sorry that you are going to have the one of the objectively worst launch dates in 2025, by the by, and that there's now new context you weren't expecting when you wrote this originally.) Worth your time.

Beyond Brown v. Board: Michelle Adams Explores Detroit’s Fight Against Segregation in Education and Housing

Michelle Adams’ passion for Detroit history is vividly portrayed through this in-depth look at the fight for desegregation in public schools. “The Containment” refers to the intentional racial discrimination in housing that had the deliberative result of keeping African Americans limited to certain areas of Detroit. Adams provides not only a local and state view of the broader impacts of Brown v. Board of Education, but she also weaves personal impacts and activism throughout. The Containment is an exemplar case in how to contextualize historical events within the broader period. Additionally, Adams provides comparison to other desegregation efforts around the nation, highlighting the different ways that communities sought to support and oppose integration efforts and how that has resulted in vastly different outcomes for those areas today. I was incredibly impressed with the level of research that was done to make this book come together in such an accessible and understandable way, despite the complex nature of litigation and the court process. Due to the length and comprehensiveness, I would recommend this book to readers highly interested in Detroit and civil rights efforts toward desegregation.


I am grateful to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an advanced reader copy of Michelle Adams’ The Containment.

I immediately knew I needed to read The Containment when I saw it in the @netgalley catalog. In this book, Michelle Adams details the history of a Supreme Court case that is little known by the average American but, as Adams argues, is crucial for understanding the current state of segregation in the Northern United States.

Milliken v. Bradley was a lawsuit brought by the NAACP in the early 70s against the Detroit public schools and the state of Michigan that alleged not only that the Detroit public schools had been segregated but that the district itself had been segregated from the surrounding suburban districts through a combination of white flight from the city and residential containment of the city’s Black residents.

Two major elements contributed to the extremely controversial nature of the case: The case hinged on the courts accepting that residential segregation necessarily resulted in school segregation, a fact of which the growing conservative judicial movement was extremely skeptical, and its geographically wide ranging allegations raised the specter of “busing,” a favorite child of the 1970’s white backlash to the civil rights movement.

Going into the book, I was a bit worried about the legal jargon I expected from a law professor like Adams, but once I got into the reading I was pleasantly surprised that the writing was not just accessible but actually quite gripping.

The book is divided into three parts: the first focuses on the clash between integrationist and Black separatist ideas of how to improve the Detroit public schools in the 1960s, the second widens out to the broader problem of school desegregation in the North following Brown v. Board of Education, and the third dives into the SCOTUS battle over the case. Of the three sections, it is the third that comes closest to feeling bogged down by legalese, but it continues to be engaging all the way through.

Thank you to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for providing me with an advanced copy. The Containment will be available January 14th, 2025.