Brown Vs Board Of Education Analysis

"Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."i These were the words uttered by the Supreme Court on may 17, 1954 in the ruling of the Brown vs. Board of Education Case that overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling of fifty-eight years earlier which stated that separate but equal was not unconstitutional. Brown is viewed perhaps as the most significant case on race in America's history.i It seemed to call for a new era in which Black children and White children would have equal opportunities to achieve the proverbial American Dream . However the victory was perhaps premature and immediately caused hostility by Whites opposed to integration, who went to the extent of saying that many Blacks were retarded and that tuberculosis
and venereal disease would spread. Their point was that integration would destroy their way of live.i The Court action thereafter can be seen as sympathetic towards Whites when they added to the ruling that the schools should integrate "with all deliberate speed."i The apparent victory was compromised from this point on because the denotation of the ruling meant ‘slow' and resisters were allowed to end segregation on their own timetable.
All Deliberate Speed, by Charles J. Ogletree Jr. offers his personal reflections on the historic civil rights decision of Brown vs. Board of Education, as well as an extensive discussion on why the Brown decision, coming at a time of great racial inequality in America, marked a critical effort by the Supreme Court to state that legalized racial inequality in America would no longer be tolerated. Ogletree later goes in depth with the social and historical impart of the Brown decision and how he was personally impacted by the decision and concludes with a personal discussion of the legacy of Brown in the twenty-first
century. All Deliberate Speed is the culmination of fifty years of personal reflections of a "Brown baby." Ogletree had three goals in mind when writing this book.
He wanted to demonstrate that Brown not only raised new obstacles to segregation in legal civil social contexts but also challenged the assumption that there was no option but loyalty to the status quo. He then goes on to discuss the important work of lawyers who started the legal fight for racial integration decades before the Brown decision, the obstacles they faced and overcame, and the disappointment they eventually experienced, as they saw a critical decision weakened not only by the legislative and executive branches of the government but by the same Court, as its membership to conservatives who turned their backs on the mandate articulated in Brown. Finally he brings into this book his personal reflections on Brown during his lifetime. Ogletree recounts his story through the various stages of maturity and self discoveries he underwent and takes the reader on that journey. He begins with his childhood encounters with race, his experiences in college and law schools as a beneficiary of Brown and affirmative action programs, and the impact that the end of legal segregation had in his life. He comes to the conclusion that "To be blind to race is to be blind to reality," and that this country will always be divided into two nations separated by race, income and opportunity because of the race relations
established since the colonization of America. It is for this very reason that he doubts there will ever be a time when affirmative action programs will be unnecessary and become a relic of the past in a race-blind nation unless major steps are taken to attribute reparations to African Americans who have worked hard and have thrived against all odds in the face of slavery then segregation and now discrimination.i
"With all deliberate speed,"i echoed the Supreme Court unanimously during the Brown case. This case was quite different in that it was the first time that the balance of power was not maintained and the judicial branch overstepped its boundary into the legislative and even executive branch. The court was allowed to enforce its ruling by penalizing schools which attempted to resist integration and was able to mandate integration through the ingenious system of busing. This was also the first instance in which the Supreme Court before its ruling in the Brown case require a unanimous decision.i Brown was perhaps among the first cases which overturned a ruling that the Supreme Court had made in the past and therefore raised new obstacles to segregation in but also challenged the assumption that there was no option but loyalty to the status quo.i No other cases ruled by the Supreme Court had created such dissension amongst Whites and Blacks except when one famous American used a similar expression eighty-nine years earlier. President Abraham Lincoln when asked whether he favored the immediate emancipation of the slaves, he responded, "It will do no good to go ahead any faster than the country will follow.." i So in this reference the faith of African American was only meant to be change by a slowed convergence from the majority when they saw fit. It is not surprising therefore that eighty-nine years after the proclamation of Emancipation done only as an end to prevent a scale-wide revolt amongst African-Americans, the Court would attempt to use a similar tactic to ensure that there was no disruption in the hierarchy and balance of power of American society. By including that clause within the ruling, the Court basically failed to pass a concise and impartial decision which would later come to cost them more through demands of reparations because of their unwillingness to force White Americans to fully embrace the Brown decision. i So the evil that Brown sought to eliminate segregation, is still with us to this day and the good that it sought to put in its place, integration-continues to elude us. i For here lies the power that the four words uttered by the Supreme Court fifty years ago allowed the perpetuation of discrimination towards minorities and more precisely towards African Americans in the American society.
The Brown case not only proved to impact America's history but it was also infiltrated into the American society as a whole. It sought to eradicate all traces of a caste system as well as the color line dividing Blacks from Whites. Most importantly it put into question the eighty-nine years of the segregation experienced by Whites and Blacks. When Brown claimed that segregation was unconstitutional, it was not challenging the environment alone but it was also challenging the access to equal resources whether you are in an all Black or integrated setting, equal resources and integration of differing ideas are essential to a well rounded education.i However by challenging the segregated educational system, Brown as well challenged segregated public areas such as restaurants, pools, movie theaters, buses and would come to serve as one of the thrust for the culmination to the Civil Rights movement. In the eyes of Whites this was chocking because if Blacks were able to attain the same rights as them, then it meant that they were not inherently inferior and as human beings and citizens of the United States of America were provided with the right to equality. This was psychological unacceptable for Whites and caused many to resort to White Supremacist attitudes towards integration by the strong revival of the Klu Klux Klan and threats made to those involved in the case as well as other African- Americans who lost their jobs, were denied credit, forced to pay longstanding debts as well as any other meansi to emphasize that equality could never be achieved because that was just the way things were meant to be. Most of the resistance to integration, interestingly enough came from the White working class because they were quick to realize that if Blacks were given equal rights, then the whole notion of Whiteness and the attributes of superiority amongst others which came along with being of that race would be lost forever. This sudden change of equality for all and integration, made many Whites very uncomfortable and many agreed with President Eisenhower private opinions. In one instance he stated that "All Southerns are concerned with is that their beautiful little girls are not forced to sit alongside of some big overgrown Negroes."i He even made the claim that "It is difficult trough law and through force to change a man's heart."i This later statement was perhaps the reason behind the delayed enforcement of integration and the resentment and opposition it encountered amongst Whites.
The benefactors of the Brown decision ultimately came to be those born around the time of the case or afterwards because the past generations were just settling in the idea of the abolition of slavery and had never contemplated asking for something as unfathomable as equality.i Ogletree takes us through his childhood in Merced, where he lived in a community separated from whites and lacking equal resources, but content with his existence.i He recalls that racism hung like a persistent cloud in Merced but was sheltered from it until one day a White classmate called him a ‘Nigger.' He was deeply hurt and it was at that moment as he later sat in class and the teacher tried to discuss race without talking about it that he grasped the significance of his blackness and concluded that being black was not a good thing.i He is reaffirmed by such a conviction several other instances in his life. For instance when he was not included in a play about the gold rush because if there was to be a mention of African-Americans, it would require the discussion of the difficult topic of slavery, He therefore concludes that although he was a good student, he was not good enough to have a character role in a play about the gold rush,i perpetuating this notion of inferiority by the White supremacy. As he gets older he realizes the significance of race in some of his classes because he is usually one of no more than two or three Black and Brown students in math and science classes.i He becomes aware of the system of tracking Black and Brown kids because of the teachers' opinion in their inability to compete successfully in the rigorous math and science courses.i It is not until high school that Ogletree is awakened to his Black consciousness due to the prodding of his teacher and coach Mr. Heflin who told him to read books such as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, Richard Wright's Native Son and others.i Through such an experience, Ogletree begins to question the status quo and actively put into practice the mandate of Brown, and called into question many civil rights issues trough the establishment of the Merced High Black Student Union. It is through this realization and embracing of his black consciousness that Ogletree heads on to Stanford grateful of the opportunities that he possessed but were not there for his parents or his grandparents. Although, Brown was rejected by the average White person, it provided Blacks with windows of opportunities that may have never been provided otherwise. Ogletree recalls the mixed emotions he experienced upon his departure from Merced because while Brown gave him and some of his future classmates equal educational opportunity, it did little to transform an educational system that expected less from Black and Brown students than from White students and that disproportionately tracked Black and Brown students in courses that failed to prepare them for college.i Most of the Black students who entered Stanford the Fall of 1971 were usually the first generation to attend college in their family.i Eventhough they came to Stanford from different places and with different experiences, their goals were similar.i It was also during this time that Ogletree fully embraces the benefits of his entrance to Stanford and fully released his Black consciousness with the help of his classmates demanded the creation of a Black Studies Program and revived the Black student newspaper.i This sense of awareness and Black pride was the experience that the Black students at Stanford were experiencing and realized that not only were they the future Black leaders of America, but they were in a position to help those lagging behind and while giving back to the various communities which they were a product of. It was during his Stanford experience and the trial of Mrs. Davis that Ogletree decided on a career path to law because he understood what a difference a good lawyer could make in the lives of clients who are facing the loss of life or liberty in the legal system.i Furthermore Ogletree realizes that speaking out against injustice and one's consciousness are perhaps the most powerful weapons that one can be equipped with. The Brown Case is venerated for declaring segregation unconstitutional but the desegregation remedies begun in Brown II. Racial segregation today is the result of a complicated mix of social, political, legal and economic factors rather than the results of direct state commands ordering racial separation. Fifty years after Brown there is still no federal constitutional requirement that pupils in predominantly minority schools receive the same quality of education as students in wealthier, largely all white suburban districts.i Today White children attend schools where eighty percent of the student body is also White, resulting in the highest level of segregation of any group. To this day minority segregated schools have much higher concentrations of poverty and much lower average test scores, lower levels of students and teachers qualifications and fewer advanced courses. So today the fear is not even that Brown's vision is being accomplished only with ‘deliberate speed' it is now supplanted only by a greater fear that resegregation of public education is occurring at a faster pace. So it seems that today much of what the Brown decision attempted to undo as been restored to almost a greater degree and that the only way to fight back it to have hope. In the words of Ogletree,
If Africans could survive the innumerable horrors of slavery, and if freed slaves could survive the cruelty and repugnance of the Jim Crow system, was as a nation can, must and will survive the current manifestations of Brown's failures. It is a challenge that we must face with unrelenting dedication and commitment, and when we do so we will not fail.i