Integration champion gets new equity center named in his honor

Dr. Dudley Flood

The Public School Forum of North Carolina has named a new center focused on promoting equity and fostering opportunities for school children in honor of Dudley Flood, a veteran educator and champion of school integration. 

The Dr. Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity (CEEO) will serve as a hub to identify and connect organizations, networks and thought leaders who address equity, access and opportunity in education across North Carolina. 

Flood was in attendance Saturday when the creation of the center was announced at the conclusion of the Forum’s “Color of Education 2019” summit. 

He said decades of experience in education has shown him that “we can whenever and wherever we choose educate any child.” 

“I have also always known that whether we do, depends on how we feel about the fact that we haven’t done so already,” Flood said. “We already know more than we need to know to do that.”    

In the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision that mandated school desegregation in the United States, Flood travelled to every corner of the state to unite divided communities and work toward integrating public schools. 

The CEEO was established with the help of a $150,000 grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to the Public School Forum for the planning, development and establishment of the Center. 

The Conway Family Fund gave an additional $25,000 gift to the Forum to help establish the CEEO. 

“The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is committed to diversity and equity in education,” said Alfred Mays, program officer at the Fund. “We are pleased to support a collaborative strategy that ensures an equity lens is being applied to policy analysis, research, and programmatic efforts in education.”