Reflection on the 60th Anniversary of the
Supreme Court Decision
Brown v. Board of Education
By
Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II
“In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably
be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunities of an
education. Such an opportunity, where
the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right that must be made available
on equal terms.”
- Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
The Occasion
Today,
May 17, 2014, is the 60th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision
that ended legalized racial segregation in United States public schools. Brown v. Board of Education (Topeka,
Kansas) overturned an 1896 case known as Plessy
v. Ferguson, which ratified the “separate but equal” doctrine that allowed
that, as long as the separate facilities for the separate races were equal,
segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The
Fourteenth Amendment provided for equal protection under the law for all
citizens. Brown v. Board was a
landmark decision whose lead defender was then-NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall. The
case is the cornerstone in the Civil Rights Movement’s use of the legal system
and the Supreme Court to overturn racial segregation in public education. Furthermore,
thirteen years later in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated
Thurgood Marshall to serve as the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court
Justice, it signaled a new hope for the United States. Marshall was confirmed
and served on the Supreme Court for twenty-four years. This was a hopeful
beginning towards a new course in race relations in the United States.
When
I was a child, I participated as a student in racially segregated education in
the 1970’s. We were urged by caring teachers to focus on our assignments
through classroom discipline, challenging academic lessons, and reminders that
we represented more than ourselves. Entering the workforce as a productive
citizen was the expected end result of a good education. Our families expressed
their need for us to achieve and reminded us that believing in God and
ourselves was important to developing resilience in tough times. Learning was
not segmented. Faith, social skills, and discipline were integrated teachings
at home, school, and community life.
The
struggle to end segregation in public education was believed by some to be a
part of our communal calling to expand opportunity for all. Justice was deeply
involved in this communal calling, because education was preached as the roadmap
to opportunity in this nation and world. My father often preached that
integration was an opportunity to engage the whole community in collective
learning. His view was based on the belief that all races could learn from one
another, because we all had something to offer. “God is no respecter of persons”[i] he bellowed from the
pulpit of St. Luke Presbyterian Church in Orangeburg, South Carolina. And
indeed we know that God shows no partiality, but endows each child of God with
unique and special gifts. Integration challenged our community and I applaud
those Caucasian parents who did not move their children to the all-Caucasian
private schools. It was an act of trust beyond their own making that led them
to commit to desegregation, knowing that a high school that was then all-Caucasian
would become predominantly African American just a few years after integration.
Our Failure
So,
the celebration of this landmark decision is momentous, both for me personally
and for our nation. But we still have a
problem.
Today,
public education is failing in the United
States. Inner city public schools are emblematic of the devastation in the
inner city. High rates of poverty, gun violence, HIV/AIDS, teen pregnancy, suicide,
drug use, alienation, and despair plague these inner city schools. Large
populations of poor African American and Latino children are the “forgotten
children” educationally in the United States – the ones we left (and continue
to leave) behind. We are faced with private and charter schools that are
competing with and drawing public funds away from a failing public education
system.
Poorly
educated children entering a dismal job market are a recipe for hopelessness,
despair, and desperation. We are witnessing the results in the school to prison pipeline,
which is not being addressed in any significant way by our local, state, or
federal government. In this common scenario, privatized,
for-profit prisons become a destination for masses of young people who are
trapped in the penal system with long-term incarceration and damaged lives. An
underground economy of drugs, prostitution, and other illegal activities, fed
by guns and other forms of violence, becomes the despairing result of a
hopeless people.[ii]
What About Our Tradition?
The
219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
adopted the resolution “Loving
Our Neighbors: Equity and Quality in Public Education.” The policy is both
a reminder and challenge to restore our historic commitment to the education of
the whole child – each and every child. In the Rationale for this extensive document, it explains with respect to
our Reformed heritage:
Beginning with John Calvin’s support
of free schools, people of the Reformed tradition have always affirmed the
value of education and its potential to transform lives and systems. The
Reformers considered public education essential—first of all, so that the
populace might be literate and thus able to read the Bible (leading to support
for primary education); and, Secondly, that persons might read Scripture with
understanding (and thus the reformers’ support for higher education). Our
Reformed tradition further asserts that “... privatism, which seeks exemption
from the conditions prevailing in a society and refuses to participate in a
creative way in the social milieu, is incompatible with God’s intention for our
lives. [Our tradition] affirms that growth toward self-determining,
responsible, committed persons, concerned for the freedom and stability of
their society, is best fostered in the pluralistic and ideologically open
setting of public education. This role of the public schools must be
consistently maintained and openly defended when necessary by citizens and by
school personnel” (A Call to Church Involvement in the Renewal of Public
Education. (Minutes, 1987, Part I, p. 481).[iii]
Historically,
Presbyterians have offered strong support for public schools to educate
children. But in this present day, we cannot ignore the failures of public
education and the educational disparity between wealthy and poor children in
the United States. Brown v. Board of
Education was an acknowledgement of the racial and economic disparity that
existed in a time of Jim Crow segregation in the United States and its
resulting psychological damage. How can we celebrate when poor minority
children in our own country are no better off today, with regards to receiving
a quality education, than they were sixty years ago? I want to suggest that we
missed the mark. The intention of Thurgood Marshall and others who fought
against “separate but equal” was not simply for African American children to
occupy the same classroom with Caucasian children. Integration was a means to
provide a significant learning experience that would shape a future of hope for
all children. Today, we are failing miserably.
Perhaps
the most famous biblical account involving children is found in Mark 10:13-16
and it is about breaking down barriers for children. In the story, Jesus becomes
displeased with his disciples after they rebuke the people for bringing
children and try to send them away. These children were brought to Jesus to be
blessed by him. Jesus expresses his displeasure with his disciples and tells
them, “let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such
as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” He affirms them and bases our future
acquaintance with the Kingdom God on an acknowledgement of our child-likeness
before the throne of grace. Bring them to me is Jesus’ clarion call to children
who are shoved away and ignored. Today, we continue to be called to stand up
and intervene for the children. We must challenge a system that remains
racially segregated when it comes to opportunity for the least of these,
including our children. We can and must do better.
Next Steps
I encourage you to study the
policy adopted by the 219th General Assembly (2010) entitled “Loving
Our Neighbors: Equity and Quality in Public Education.”
Other
ideas for engagement:
· Solicit
others in your congregation,
church school class, and community groups to investigate the possible
disparities in education in your own cities, towns, and/or communities.
· Revisit the history of Brown v. Board of Education and the
subsequent cases for which it paved the way. Brown opened the door for several important cases that all chipped
away at the long-institutionalized “separate but equal” disparity.
· Attend local school board meetings,
learn more about the inequities in education, and seek to make your own schools
a place of equity and opportunity for all children.
· Support the work of the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness in Washington DC, through upcoming action alerts, contacting your Congressional
leaders and the President, financial giving
opportunities, and information sharing, as we work on federal reform of
public education in the United States.
The Reverend J. Herbert Nelson, II, is the Director for Public Witness at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Office of Public Witness in Washington, DC.
[i] “God is no respecter of persons,” Acts
10:34, King James Version. A more contemporary translation from the New Revised
Standard Version reads, “God shows no partiality.”
[ii] See Catherine Y. Kim, The School to Prison Pipeline: Structuring Legal Reform (New York: NYU Press, May 1, 2012); Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2012)
[iii] “Loving our Neighbors: Equity and
Quality in Public Education (K-12),” approved by the 219th General
Assembly (2010). Cited passage on page 7 of the printed
booklet. Also available in: Minutes, 2010,
pp. 325-328, 774-789. Download available at
