Continuing Search for Quality Education by African Americans: Fifty Years After Brown, The
Brown, Frank
The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled against required separation of the races in statesponsored institutions and ended apartheid in American education. That decision also led the way for ending segregation in public facilities and in private institutions not generally covered by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. This decision did not end de facto racial segregation due to private choice of residential segregation. This special issue, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Brown, seeks to provide current readers of The Journal of Negro Education with an informed analysis of issues associated with race and education in America and a record for future readers with an interest in that period of America’s past. We sought and achieved this task with the assistance of distinguished scholars on race and education in this country.
The quest for quality integrated education in America began before the end of slavery. In 1849, a Black family sued the City of Boston (Roberts v. City of Boston, 1849) to allow its daughter to attend a neighborhood White school rather than travel a much longer distance to attend the city’s all-Black elementary school. The state High Court ruled against the Black family, and that decision was supported by the U.S. Supreme Court. This action, seeking desegregation of public education, occurred before the enactment of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 14′ Amendment applied the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the Constitution) to the states and gave Blacks citizenship; moreover, Congress added an Equal Protection Clause to the 14th Amendment. The country, in general, obeyed the laws of the land until 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, held that states may satisfy the Equal Protection Clause of the 14* Amendment by providing the different races with “separate but equal” facilities. Plessy involved public transportation but was generally applied to most areas of public life involving race. Thereafter, all of the southern states and some border states enacted laws making it illegal for Black and White children to attend the same school.
The first test of Plessy in education occurred in the State of Mississippi in 1927 (Gong Lum v. Rice) when a Chinese family sought relief from having its child attend Black schools and asked the Court to allow the child to attend White schools. The -Mississippi Court applied the Plessy decision to all non-Whites, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. However, beginning in the late 1930s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began legal action to desegregate public graduate education in the southern states. Its first, efforts involved getting Black students admitted to White graduate and professional schools where none existed for Black students in Black colleges and universities. The NAACP won several cases, but the case with the most meaning for the future Brown decision was Sweatt v. Painter (1950). In this case, a Black student applied to the University of Texas Law School, and the state responded by establishing a Black Law School at all-Black Texas Southern University. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such a law school could not be the equal of the University of Texas Law School; therefore, the Court failed the “separate but equal” test and ordered the Black student admitted to the University of Texas Law School. Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Brown, ruled that laws requiring racially separate schools were unconstitutional.
The Brown decision of 1954 did not immediately end racially segregated schools. The desegregation of public education, en mass, occurred almost two decades later; and, in 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court discontinued enforcement of Brown.
This special issue on Brown at 50 tells the story of efforts to racially integrate public education. In Part I, the first six articles provide information on the historical and legal events (including the many court cases) required to gain reasonable measure to school integration. Charles J. Russo traces the history of school desegregation through the courts and looks ahead. Frank Brown takes us into how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expedited the process of desegregation, and he informs us of the role of politics in this fight; particularly, the “Southern Strategy” practiced by Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Eugene E. Eubanks, a former desegregation court master, writes about his experience in the role of a court master and the administration of the court-ordered desegregation. Richard C. Hunter, a former superintendent of several school systems under Brown, discusses the administration of court-ordered desegregation plans. From this viewpoint, Hunter details the impact of school desegregation. The last chapter in Part I, by Mark A. Gooden, discusses the impact of legal actions on Black academic achievement over the past 50 years under Brown.
In Part II, “Socioeconomic and Educational Dynamics of Brown’s School Desegregation,” Anita Fleming-Rife and Jennifer M. Proffitt inform the readers about the role of the media in the school desegregation struggle. Philip T. K. Daniel illustrates for the readers the interaction between educational accountability and school desegregation. Paul Green discusses unfulfilled expectations of Brown in terms of behavioral outcomes, while H. Richard Milner and Tyrone C. Howard trace the involvement of Black teachers, students, and communities in the desegregation process. Likewise, James E. Lyons and Joanne Chesley analyze the impact of the desegregation of public education on African American teachers, administrators, and students. Moreover, A. Reynaldo Contreras provides insights into the role of Brown as related to multicultural education of Hispanic Americans.
In the final set of articles (Part III), the authors analyze the dynamics and impact of desegregation regarding postsecondary education. William B. Harvey, Adia M. Harvey, and Mark King present data and analyses on African Americans in colleges and universities. In separate but similar articles, M. Christopher Brown II and F. Erik Brooks highlight postsecondary court litigation that removed the residue of past segregation in historically Black colleges and universities. In the final article, Jeanita W. Richardson and J. John Harris III analyze the educational costs of Black access to postsecondary education.
This collection of topics and articles on Brown v. Board of Education, over the past 50 years, will provide readers with a comprehensive record and analyses of important components of issues and events associated with Brown and race in America. I am grateful to The Journal of Negro Education for celebrating this historical event, and I wish to thank the distinguished scholars who gave so much of their time and talents to this endeavor.
REFERENCES
Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, 349 U.S. 294 (1955).
Gong Lum v. Rice, 275 U.S. 78 (1927).
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
Roberts v. City of Boston, 5 Gushing Reports 198 (1849).
Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950).
Frank Brown University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Copyright Howard University Summer 2004
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