The history of the public schooling of African Americans during legalized segregation has focused almost exclusively on the inferior education that African American students received. In the national memory, African Americans have been victims of Whites who questioned the utility of providing Blacks with anything more than a rudimentary education and who grossly underfunded that education. In truth, the memory of the inequality of resources is not inaccurate, but recalling segregated schools only through their poor resources presents a historically incomplete picture. Some evidence suggests that the environment of the segregated school had affective traits, institutional policies, and community support that helped black children learn in spite of the neglect of their schools by white school boards. This look at one particular segregated school from the emic perspective begins with a community's evaluation of its former school. The focus is on the Caswell County Training School in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. The first three chapters consider the historic relationship between the community and the school, and later chapters explore the ways in which the school demonstrated its commitment to the students it served. The effects of desegregation and events of the last decade are also evaluated. (Contains 6 tables, 19 photographs, 1 map, and a bibliography of 4 collections, 52 interviews, and 80 printed sources.) (SLD)