Burning House

<p><strong>Integration fits Noah Marshall's goodness category. In pursuit of goodness he voluntarily participates in school integration twice. Racism hands him a torched home and a grand jury investigation.</strong></p><p><br></p><p>In the 1930's Noah is a teenager living in Red Bird Oklahoma. Red Bird is described as an all-black town. As Noah learns his family's history and witnesses the intimidation of another Red Bird resident who protests discriminatory voting laws he recognizes that Red Bird's reality is a complex racial mixture and that reality includes him.</p><p><br></p><p>Noah leaves home for college becomes a teacher and marries his sweetheart Leila. They teach in segregated schools until <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em> in 1954. The following year school integration closes the high school where Noah works. He chooses a job offered at the newly integrated high school. Calamity to family and property follows. The next year he and Leila return to the safety of segregated schools.</p><p><br></p><p>Seventeen years later Noah is booted again from his segregated school. He chooses integration again and experiences a different troubling outcome.</p><p><br></p><p>After the second troubling integration Noah reflects on the similarities of the Underground Railroad and the Integration Railroad. He resolves to be a conductor on the Integration Railroad for a short time longer although he's aware that the train is not yet near the station.</p>