The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

I chose my hometown for one reason only: because it had tried so hard to desegregate its schools. I was chasing my 1960s childhood dream of a place where white and Black Americans could learn and live together, in an idyll of fairytale equality. 

I soon learnt that such places do not exist in today’s America — and that good intentions are not enough. Last month, the US celebrated the 70th anniversary of the landmark US Supreme Court school desegregation ruling, Brown vs Board of Education. But even in places that tried really hard at integration — like my town, Evanston, Illinois, a progressive university community that bussed children across town for 50 years to desegregate white schools — large racial achievement gaps persist, students of colour still face implicit bias and the burden of bussing still falls mostly on Black people, education experts say.