Interfaith group holds Monday session on CMS school segregation

People who have been meeting all summer to talk about racial justice will hold a special session Monday to focus on racial and economic isolation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

The MeckMin session will be from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Caldwell Presbyterian Church, 1609 E. Fifth St., Charlotte.

The interfaith group has been holding weekly “We Need To Talk” gatherings to focus on healing and change in the wake of racial tensions in Charlotte and across the country.

Meckmin is composed of almost 100 white, black and mixed houses of worship.

The school-focused session dovetails with an earlier panel convened for the faith community to talk about the ongoing CMS review of student assignment and the push to break up concentrations of poverty and de facto racial segregation.

All seats for that session have filled, but the MeckMin event allows others to hear from the speakers, including author and former Observer reporter Frye Gaillard and Amy Hawn Nelson of the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.

Both have done extensive analysis and written books about the history of segregation, desegregation and resegregation in CMS.

They previously spoke at a packed session earlier this summer at UNCC Center City.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 6:38 PM with the headline "Interfaith group holds Monday session on CMS school segregation."