In recognition of the fifty-first anniversary of
the Supreme Court's historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education,
a case often cited as the milestone in America’s march towards
racial equality, I recently discussed the legacy of Brown with
students at Bragaw Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey. I explained to the students that before the
Supreme Court’s ruling
in Brown states were permitted to segregate students by
race in public primary and secondary public schools. The justification
for segregating students by race was proffered by the Supreme Court
in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which recognized that whiteness
was a tangible item to be owned – indeed, a property right – much
like the sneakers or coveted sports paraphernalia worn by the students,
that was protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court
made it clear, however, that whiteness could not be the property
of Blacks, and that if a Black person was assigned to a segregated
train, as the Louisiana statute in Plessy required, “he
has been deprived of no property, since he is not lawfully entitled
to the reputation of being a white man.”
Despite recognizing that the purpose of the
Fourteenth Amendment “was
undoubtedly to enforce absolute equality of the two races before
the law,” the Supreme Court noted that it “could not have been
intended to abolish distinctions based upon color” or to enforce “social…equality,
or a co-mingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to
either.”
In his dissent, Justice Harlan asserted what
Justice Brown and other segregationists knew but would not admit: that the real
meaning of Louisiana’s legislation was to communicate to Blacks
that they were “so inferior and degraded” that they could not be
allowed to sit in public trains occupied by white citizens. Justice
Harlan warned that Louisiana’s law would “certainly arouse race
hate” and “create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between
these races.”
The Plessy decision led to the swift
creation of the society that Justice Harlan feared: a society so divided by relentless
and complete state-mandated segregation that communication between
Blacks and whites, let alone an understanding of each other’s humanity,
was virtually impossible.
By 1900, each Southern state had segregated
railroad trains, and segregation laws were extended to cover
all travel facilities. Segregation
laws also flourished in all public facilities and private facilities
open to the public. Hospitals, parks, courthouses and prisons
contained segregated waiting rooms, water fountains, toilets, telephone
booths, stairways, entrances and exits. To ensure separation of
the races even after death, states segregated graveyards.
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown overturned
the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy, and held that
racial segregation in public schools violates the U.S. Constitution. Chief
Justice Warren described education as “perhaps the most important
function of state and local governments” and the “very foundation
of good citizenship.” Where a state has undertaken to provide
education, Warren continued, “it is a right which must be made
available to all on equal terms.” With this background, Warren
addressed the central issue in the case: “Does segregation of
children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though
physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal,
deprive children of the minority group of equal, educational opportunities? We
believe that it does.”
The Supreme Court went on to recognize that
separating students, particularly grade school and high school
students, solely because
of their race “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status
in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way
unlikely to ever be undone.” Warren concluded that, “in the field
of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no
place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” At
the same time, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause
of the Fifth Amendment prohibited the federal government from segregating
students according to race in the District of Columbia, applying
the same principle to the federal government.
I explained here to the students at Bragaw that the Supreme Court,
having overruled Plessy’s “separate but equal” doctrine,
considered the following year in Brown v. Board of Education
(II) the question of what remedy should be granted. Although
courts usually award prevailing parties an immediate remedy, the
Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs’ demands in Brown that
they immediately be allowed to attend integrated schools.
The prospect of immediately integrating schools
and therefore placing resistant white students – who had been told by the Supreme
Court, and had come to believe, that their whiteness was a property
right – in classrooms to learn with and from Black students was
wholly unacceptable. Instead, the Supreme Court returned the cases
to the district courts with the admonition that orders and decrees
be entered to admit plaintiffs to public schools on a racially
nondiscriminatory basis “with all deliberate speed….”
Commenting on the Brown II opinion, Robert Carter, a federal
district court judge, former NAACP General Counsel and one of the
lawyers who argued Brown before the Supreme Court, asserted
that it was “clear that what the [‘all deliberate speed’] formula
required was movement toward compliance on terms that the white
South would accept.” Judge Carter stated that the Supreme Court
failed to fully appreciate the enormity of the segregation problem,
and in showing compassion to the white South by regulating desegregation
at a pace acceptable to them, both failed to develop a willingness
to comply and, in fact, encouraged white resistance to defy integration.
And defy integration is precisely what whites
did. To resist
the Supreme Court’s desegregation order in Brown and Brown
II, whites closed public primary and secondary schools, and,
in some cases, literally blocked – through fierce intimidation – entrance
to schools that remained open for Blacks. Not surprisingly, integration
moved, to the extent it moved at all, at glacier-like progress
in the years following Brown. Indeed, by 1963, the 11 states
of the old Confederacy had less than 2 percent of their Black students
attending school with white students, and with the help of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, the percentage climbed to a meager 6
percent.
I was hopeful, at this point, that this sobering critique of Brown would
not lead the students to believe that Brown’s only accomplishment
was the articulation of an illusory standard. At a minimum, Brown,
in addition to recognizing that Blacks are entitled to equal treatment
under the law, laid the foundation for a society in which no state
could require racial segregation in public schools. Not only this,
but the Supreme Court's desegregation order in Brown galvanized
the civil rights movement and eventually led to the dismantling
of American apartheid in various arenas beyond education, including
employment, political participation, and housing.
But what of Brown's relevance in 2005
to the students in Newark at Bragaw Avenue School? And what of Justice Warren’s lofty
language over 50 years earlier about education, which he described
as the “very foundation of good citizenship,” being made available “to
all on equal terms?” And, finally, what of Warren's contention
that the “separate but equal” doctrine, even where physical facilities
are equal, is inherently unequal and generate feelings of inferiority
in minority students in a way “unlikely to ever be undone?”
Today, Bragaw Avenue School, a public primary
school, has a student body that is nearly as racially segregated
as schools were in 1954. Bragaw’s
student population is 98 percent Black and 2 percent Latino. Not
one white student attends Bragaw.
I absolutely do not mean to assert here that
Black students cannot learn and indeed flourish in predominantly
Black public primary
and secondary schools. (In fact, a strong argument could be made
that, if better resourced, Black students would perform better
in predominantly Black schools.) Instead, I recognize that educational
resources have historically followed and continue to follow white
students, that predominantly minority-race schools are more likely
to be high-poverty schools, and that children who attend high-poverty
schools, on average, do less well academically. Indeed, nearly
all of Bragaw’s students live below the poverty line.
Despite having the benefit of many outstanding
teachers, recent statistics report, tragically, that of the students
who graduate
from the 8th grade in Newark, only 4 out of 10 will graduate from
high school.
I shared with the students that Brown's principles – that
the “separate but equal” doctrine is inherently unequal, and that
all people are entitled to equal treatment under the law – are
embraced by most Americans. Indeed, praise for the Brown decision
can rise to the level of worship. However, the purpose of Brown was
more than the assertion of a principle. To be sure, the purpose
of Brown was to end the “separate but equal” practices in
America’s classrooms. As an articulation of principle, Brown has
succeeded in making state-sponsored segregation illegal. As an
instrument of integration, however, Brown's legacy has been
less successful.
Bragaw Avenue School does not stand as an anomaly
in an educational system of otherwise racially diverse primary
and secondary schools
across the country. Indeed, one would not need the benefit of
a telescope to find numerous Bragaws – although recognized by different
names, of course – in inner cities across the country.
In all fairness to Brown, the law has
limited ability to change behavior. Brown dismantled
the "separate but
equal" regime, an end that could be understood intellectually
by all. But what Brown could not and cannot do – indeed
what no law or Supreme Court ruling can ever do – is change the
hearts of people.
This is precisely what Judge Carter noted,
nearly 40 years ago, when he spoke of race relations in America,
saying: “the preexisting
pattern of white superiority and black subordination remains unchanged; … Few
in the country, black or white, understood in 1954 that racial
segregation was merely a symptom, not the disease; that the real
sickness is that our society in all of its manifestations is geared
to the maintenance of white superiority ….”
And there I stood. In front of a classroom of beautiful, inquisitive
and sharp Black children at Bragaw Avenue School. My challenge
to them was to dedicate their talents to becoming “social engineers,” a
term Charles Hamilton Houston used to describe lawyers, who would
challenge the white superiority fallacy. I am hopeful that they
will embrace that challenge, particularly because, as I could tell
from their eyes, many of them never believed that old tale in the
first place.
Ryan Paul Haygood is an attorney in New York City. |