The great progress of recent years towards school integration has not been uniform: pockets of resistance remain and the issues involved in school desegregation continue to arouse public controversy and confusion. Sixteen years after the Supreme Court (in Brown vs Topeka) had ruled that school segregation compelled or sanctioned by law unconstitutional, there is still no widespread understanding of the nature and scope of the issues. The Civil Rights Commission believes that public understanding of the issues involved in school desegregation is essential if they are to be resolved satisfactorily. Many of these issues are legal in nature and require careful analysis of relevant court decisions. Other issues involve practical questions concerning the quality of education afforded to the Nation's children. Still others relate to fundamental human and moral questions of national conscience. The Commission speaks out in the hope that it can shed light on the issues and, by so doing, contribute to their successful resolution. The issue of school desegregation, like other issues of national concern, has roots deep in history; to understand fully the present situation and to form a sound basis for determining courses of action for the future, what that history has been must first be understood. (Authors/JM)