Loose Ends Still Untied
Aurora is not known to be the greatest town in the suburbs of Chicago, so it is a typical move for the people from my side of town to claim residence in Naperville. I will be the first to admit that I have often betrayed my hometown and laid claim to its relatively glamorous neighbor. Naperville is one of the country’s “best places to raise a family,” or so I have heard. I wouldn’t be too surprised, considering the amount of wealth that flows through the town. Naperville offers a mix of people, professionals and their families of various ethnicities and backgrounds; however, it lacks true culture diversity. Even though there are whites, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, etc., few of its youths are conscious of the various backgrounds because of the economic equality of everyone: everyone is equally rich in Naperville (a point of which I and my fellow Aurorans regularly accused our Naperville schoolmates). My high school consisted of a decent racial blend, and despite a few cultural cliques, everyone was White in thought and in wallet. I did not hold this view at the time, but I had yet to be exposed to reality then.
When I came to the University of Illinois, I was accompanied by a significant force of my high school peers, including all but two of my closest friends. During the first few weeks of school, when everybody was meeting everybody else, I was busy hanging out with my standard high school group and, thus, missed much of the opportunity to make a bounty of new friends. I did, however, meet one person who has become my closest friend and who sparked my introduction to reality. I went to visit him over spring break. It was a Friday, a little past noon. My friend lives around 75th Street, a block from Lake Michigan. For everyone who isn’t from the area, I was right in the middle of a very black south side of Chicago neighborhood. When his mother found out I was coming to do lunch, she asked him, “Why are you making this boy come out here?” My friend responded immediately: “Mom, he’s not afraid of black people.” This was a true statement; I never had feared anyone because of race, but his mother instinctively knew, unlike my friend and me, that his hometown and my hometown were polar opposites.
"Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires. While everything forgotten hands in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return...”, a quote from the movie Velvet Goldmine, expresses the thoughts that many supporters of integration may have felt because no one truly knew the effects that one major verdict could create. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a very important watershed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, like most progressive decisions, it did not create an effective solution because no time limit was ever given. James Baldwin realized that this major oversight would lead to a “broken promise.”
“’The Supreme Court decision [on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas] is the greatest victory for the Negro people since the Emancipation Proclamation,’ Harlem’s Amsterdam News exclaimed. ‘It will alleviate troubles in many other fields.’ The Chicago Defender added, ‘this means the beginning of the end of the dual society in American life and the system…of segregation which supports it.’”
“We conclude unanimously that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (qtd. in Irons 163). Many African-Americans waited to hear this quote from Chief Justice Earl Warren after many years of fighting for better educational opportunities by means of school desegregation. African-Americans went through much anguish before the Brown v. Board of Education trial even took place, especially in the Deep South. Little did they know that what looked like the beginning of the end was just another battle in what seemed like an endless war. Brown v. Board of Education was an important battle won during the Civil Rights Movement; however, it did have a major drawback simply because no deadline existed, an issue that author James Baldwin grasped from the moment the decision was made. The South took full advantage of this major flaw and continued to keep its segregated schools with no intention of ever integrating.
Last summer, my then twelve year old son was asked to participate in the National Junior Leaders Conference in Washington, DC. So, I packed our stuff and we headed for our nation's capital. While there, we visited the Supreme Court and my son, never having been there before, was simply awed. A short time later, we went to the Library of Congress. At the time (I don't know whether or not it's still there), there was a display -- three or four rooms big dedicated to the Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. While the case was something that Nicholas (my son) and I had talked about on a few occasions, it was interesting to watch him as he navigated through the rooms that had photographs, court documents, newspaper articles, and other memorabilia of the case and the people involved with it. About thirty minutes into our time there, he started to cry softly, but he continued making his way through the display. He went to every single display in those several rooms; he didn't want to leave until he had seen everything and read everything. When we finally left (almost four hours after we arrived), he said to me, "It's disgraceful the way our country treated black people; there was no honor in any of it."
The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the circumstances were clearly not separate but equal. Brown v. Board of Education brought this out, this case was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.
Brown v. Board of Education, which was the 1954 Supreme Court decision ordering America’s public schools to be desegregated, has become one of the most time-honored decisions in American constitutional law, and in American history as a whole. Brown has redefined the meaning of equality of opportunity, it established a principle that all children have a constitutional right to attend school without discrimination. With time, the principles of equality that were established, because of the Brown trial, extended beyond desegregation to disability, sexuality, bilingual education, gender, the children of undocumented immigrants, and related issues of civil equality.
Brown v. Board of Education was a significant case that began many debates and movements across the United States of America. The basis of the argument was that “separate but equal” schools for white and African-American children were unconstitutional. This case was first filed as a class action suit, which took it to court at a state level, but after the jurisdiction was seen as unfair, was then brought to the Supreme Court. This case was supposed to be the beginning of the end of national segregation of colored people. (USHistoryatlas.com, 2015) Brown v. Board of Education proved that even though most people thought that racism was a problem that had been solved, the root of segregation was much deeper
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was a milestone in American history, as it began the long process of racial integration, starting with schools. Segregated schools were not equal in quality, so African-American families spearheaded the fight for equality. Brown v. Board stated that public schools must integrate. This court decision created enormous controversy throughout the United States. Without this case, the United States may still be segregated today.
African Americans are still facing segregation today that was thought to have ended many years ago. Brown v. Board of Education declared the decision of having separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. As Brown v. Board of Education launches its case, we see how it sets the infrastructure to end racial segregation in all public spaces. Today, Brown v. Board of Education has made changes to our educational system and democracy, but hasn’t succeeded to end racial segregation due to the cases still being seen today. Brown v. Board of Education to this day remains one of the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the good of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education didn’t just focus on children and education, it also focused on how important equality is even when society claimed that African Americans were treated equal, when they weren’t. This was the case that opened the eyes of many American’s to notice that the separate but equal strategy was in fact unlawful.
In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States was confronted with the controversial Brown v. Board of Education case that challenged segregation in public education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case because it called into question the morality and legality of racial segregation in public schools, a long-standing tradition in the Jim Crow South, and threatened to have monumental and everlasting implications for blacks and whites in America. The Brown v. Board of Education case is often noted for initiating racial integration and launching the civil rights movement. In 1951, Oliver L. Brown, his wife Darlene, and eleven other African American parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, and sued them for denying their colored children the right to attend segregated white schools. They sought to change the policy of racial segregation in their school district. The plaintiffs collaborated with the leadership of the local Topeka NAACP to overturn segregation in public schools. In the fall of 1951, the parents tried to enroll their children into the neighborhood schools, but they were denied enrollment in the white schools and told to attend segregated black schools. The District Court noted that segregation in public education had a harmful effect on black children, but denied the need to desegregate schools because “the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors” in Topeka, Kansas were all equal. The District Court confirmed the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson by the Supreme Court in 1896 and upheld state laws permitting, or requiring, segregation in public education.
In the 20th century, America was very different than the way it is today. Life as we know in this country today had had different struggles. Situations were very different but also more difficult for some Americans. One of these difficulties was racial segregation. Segregation brought inequality to many African Americans in this country and thus unable them to contribute to America’s strive for prosperity and power. And so in the mid 1900’s, African Americans decided that it was time to fight against the inequality that was taking place in their day-to-day life. One of the most significant fights against inequality was one certain Supreme Court case that would rid America of its inequality liability. The Supreme Court case, Brown Vs. Board of Education, impacted the United States socially and economically. It also impacted the civil rights movement. This case changed the way all Americans viewed segregation as the country was dealing with the liability of inequality.
. Growing up in a divers area is quite benifiticial when you get to college. You will be able to interact with all kinds of people and you will not have to overcome the race barrier that some other people have to deal with. In the article “What's Past is Prologue: How Precollege Exposure to Racial Diversity Shapes the Impact of College Interracial Interactions” by Bowman, Nicholas focuses on their precollege experience and explores whether and how the impac...
Even though Brown vs. Board of Education had some impact in ensuring safe and equal public schools for African Americans we still have ways to go. The Brown Vs. Board of Education case in 1954 was huge for the United States Supreme Court because it declared states laws establishing separate public schools for white and African American students to be unconstitutional due to the fourteenth amendment. This was the start of all public school getting desegregated, but it still wasn’t equal. 14th amendment said that everyone should be treated equally. “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process
The Brown v. Board of Education case had a big impact not only on the case but more so on history itself. This case showed others that there was separation of education for children like having a black school were only colored children were allowed to go to and a white school for white children only. Linda Brown a third grader who played a role in this case due to the fact that she had lived about seven blocks away from the nearest all white school, however she was denied admission so she instead had to attend an all black school which was a mile away considering how there was 18 schools in the Topeka neighborhood for white children and only 4 schools for black children. Linda’s father, Oliver Brown had challenged the school segregation law in the supreme court by achieving help from the NAACP to help address this situation.
On the seventeenth day in May 1954 a decision was made which changed things in the United States dramatically. For millions of black Americans, news of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education meant, at last, that they and their children no longer had to attend separate schools. Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court ruling that changed the life of every American forever.