So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the north and the south wedged into the same school district to begin with? When we asked around, no one seemed to know.

What we do know are the consequences. As soon as the district was created, white and Black folks looked over the Mason-Dixon line and saw each other not as neighbors, but as competitors for scarce resources. And the Southside always seemed to get the short end of the stick.

On this episode: how the first three decades of District 28 baked in many of the conflicts and disparities that persist to this day.

Click here for a full episode transcript.

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School Colors is created, reported, and written by Mark Winston Griffith and Max Freedman. Produced by Max Freedman, with Carly Rubin and Ilana Levinson. Edited by Soraya Shockley. Additional reporting by Carly Rubin and Abe Levine.

Project management by Soraya Shockley and Lyndsey McKenna. Fact-checking by Carly Rubin. Engineering by James Willetts. Additional research by Anna Kushner. Original music by avery r. young and de deacon board, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions.