This February 14, 1973, oral history interview conducted by William Chafe with John Foster primarily documents Foster's work on the Greensboro School Board during desegregation in the fifties and sixties. He discusses using bond money to improve black schools in the forties with the hope that separate but equal practices could continue, shares his opinions on "separate but equal" and "deliberate speed," and describes school board preparations for the Brown decision and their resolution immediately following it. Foster also describes Greensboro's black schools and students; his impressions of William Hampton, Ben Smith, and George Simkins; NAACP involvement; his assumptions about the black community and its socioeconomic differences; Dudley High's fight to use the Senior High gymnasium; the Pearsall Plan; and the school boars' consideration of black applicants' request to attend white schools. Mrs. Foster briefly talks about her involvement in the city PTA and recalls being harassed by people against desegregation.
