Clinton teaches at Maryland school to commemorate Brown vs. Board of Education decision

Jet, June 6, 1994

None of the students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, in Beltsville, MD, ever sat in a segregated classroom.

But as a part of the 40th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which desegregated public schools, President Clinton provided students a real-life history lesson-upfront and close.

"We are very fortunate in this country today that 40 years ago every justice on the Supreme Court said |separate but equal' educational facilities are wrong," said the president, who attended Whites-only public schools in Arkansas.

Obviously pleased as he looked out at the 700-plus integrated student body assembled in the school's gymnasium, Clinton pointed out that "40 years ago, a school like this one with Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-American students --a real kaleidoscope of America's diversity--it would not have existed."

The visit to the school, which received the presidential "blue ribbon" last year, highlighted a week of events by the president to commemorate the Brown decision.

A number of luminaries joined Clinton at the school, including Ernest Green, who was one of "the Little Rock Nine" and the first Black to graduate from Central High School; Thurgood Marshall, Jr., whose father, the late Supreme Court justice, represented the plaintiffs in the Brown case; U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and the U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley.

Fittingly, the highlight of the presidential visit was a history lesson on Brown, which was skillfully taught by the president and several of his "guests."

"Those of us who were White knew that it (segregation) was hurting us, that we were being deprived of the opportunity to know people, to share their feelings, to share their life experiences," Clinton told the eighth-grade class.

Speaking about his experiences in 1957 when he and eight other Black students integrated Central High School. Green acknowledged the experience was frightening, as a White mob threatened them with violence.

However. Green told the students, "we hid a goal--the goal was to try to open up opportunities in Little Rock ... While we didn't know for sure what the future was going to be, we knew we didn't want to go back to the past, and we wanted something a little better than what we were seeing."

During the president's address before the entire student body, he urged them to also "stand up for your own freedom and make the most of it."

He implored them to learn from the past. "The future is not something you inherit, but have to earn by your own efforts. You have to take the lead," Clinton said.