Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, is a metropolitan school district which, in 1969, was ordered by a Federal judge to desegregate its more than 100 schools. Desegregation began in 1970 and continues today. Having found evidence that attitudes among whites toward both busing and desegregation had changed during these years, the author set out to examine when and why these changes took place. Fifty-six persons were interviewed. The interviewees believed: (l) that community attitudes had changed; (2) that having lost their case in the Supreme Court convinced many whites that there was no longer any point in fighting desegregation; (3) that an effort three years into desegregation to involve the community in designing a pupil assignment plan strengthened the acceptability of busing and desegregation; (4) that the busing of children from upper middle income and upper income white families made busing more acceptable to other whites; and (5) that many whites changed their attitudes when they perceived that their children were not being hurt educationally or physically by going to school with blacks. (Author/GC)