Dr. Vernon Howard, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), attended East High School, and gave student and community perspectives of school desegregation. His transition from Catholic schools to East High School in 1979 revealed that the expectations for high performance were less for students. Today, as president of SCLC and a pastor of a Black church, he believes that the role of community members should be to address civil rights issues related to the inequities in education.