Their Highest Potential focuses on one African American School in the segregated South of North Carolina from 1933- 1969. Caswell County is best known for its production of tobacco and to this day still celebrates an annual festival that commemorates the “accidental” discovery of the tobacco leaf. Vanessa Siddle Walker attended Caswell County Training School, her mother taught there and her father served as the PTA president for one school year. She is a part of that school and a product of that school. In chapters one through three, we see the theme of relationship. This relationship is between community and school. In the first chapter, A Couple of Three Years Ago, black parents are supporters of beginning a high school for their children. Chapter two discusses the building of the new high school; parents were steadily advocating and searching for ways to improve their students’ education. After years of requests to the school board, the new high school was built in 1955. Chapter 3, Working Together looks less at just the parents and discusses PTA in the school and how the school made efforts to support the community. …show more content…
Chapter 4, Meeting Needs, describes how activities such as the school clubs and “chapel” met the needs of students and served children. Focusing on the second theme, chapter 5 covers the significance of the relationships between students, teachers, and the principal. Chapter 6 also titled Their Highest Potential, describes the teachers’ and principal’s beliefs and how their relationships created the school environments. The book closes with chapter 7 which introduces the NAACP and how changing times influenced the themes discussed throughout the