Unfulfilled Promise, The

Crisis, The, May/Jun 2004 by Ware, Leland

THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF EQUAL EDUCATION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN NEVER MATERIALIZED. WHAT HAPPENED?

The 1954 Brown decision was a critical turning point in constitutional law and American race relations. Many credit the decision with sparking the Civil Rights revolution and leading to the enactment of state and federal laws that ended decades of official discrimination and segregation.

Ronald Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park, believes the decision had a "psychological impact" that helped give "African Americans the confidence to go on and participate in the Civil Rights Movement."

"The most immediate legacy of Brown was the restoration of principles that underlie the Fourteenth Amendment," says Walters. "There is a line between Brown and the civil rights acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968."

But while the decision may have led to successful legislation in the areas of housing, transportation and public accommodations, schools remained segregated for decades and today are rapidly resegregating as courts end years of desegregation orders.

What went wrong? What happened to the equal educational opportunity? Fifty years after the landmark decision, why has the promise of Brown remained unfulfilled?

"The Court's ruling against school segregation encouraged African Americans to believe that the entire structure of White supremacy was illegitimate and legally vulnerable," Clayborne Carson notes in the forthcoming Journal of American History article "Two Cheers for Brown v. Board of Education." "But the civil rights struggles Brown inspired sought broader goals than the decision could deliver."

The Era of "Massive Resistance"

The difficulties began with Brown II's ambiguous timetable. A year after the Brown decision, the Supreme Court directed schools to desegregate with "all deliberate speed," under the supervision of local federal judges. Pursuing a strategy of "massive resistance," many Southern officials openly defied the Brown decision. Others exploited the vagueness of the Court's timeline by engaging in endless delaying tactics.

For example, though the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause requires state laws to yield to conflicting federal laws, segregationists reacted to Brown with far-fetched legal theories that included "interposition" and "nullification." According to these theories, when the federal government's actions intruded on "state's rights," state officials were not obligated to obey federal authorities, including federal courts.

"The expectation on the part of a lot of Blacks and Whites that there would not be a backlash . . .did not pan out," says Walters, author of the recently published White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Policy and the Black Community.

Instead, violent opposition erupted in cities and towns across the South. One of the most dramatic episodes occurred in Little Rock, Ark.

In September 1957, nine Black students were slated to enroll in Little Rock's Central High School. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus sent National Guard troops to prevent the students from enrolling. The federal court, however, issued an injunction requiring the governor to withdraw the troops.

When the Black students attempted to enroll again, they were surrounded by a mob of angry Whites gathered in front of the building, screaming threats and brandishing signs against integration. Eventually, rioting erupted on the school grounds and President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched the National Guard to Little Rock.

After heavily armed federal troops arrived in tanks and other military vehicles, the Black students were finally allowed to attend classes on Sept. 25. The National Guardsmen remained on duty at Central High School throughout the school year.

A similar confrontation unfolded in Oxford, Miss., when James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1961. When an appellate court ordered Meredith's admission, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett announced his intention to defy the federal court's decision, relying on the "interposition" doctrine, which allowed an individual state to oppose any federal action that it believed was unconstitutional.

As a result, when Meredith, accompanied by federal marshals, attempted to enter Ole Miss to register for classes, state officials blocked his efforts. Eventually, President John F. Kennedy sent federal troops to Oxford, where hundreds of Whites had gathered on the campus. A riot ensued and two people were killed. On Oct. 1, 1962, Meredith was finally able to register for classes. Federal troops stayed in Oxford until Meredith graduated in 1963.

And in Alabama, Governor George Wallace, who had vowed at his inauguration, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever," orchestrated a well-publicized standoff in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block two Black students - Vivian Malone and James Hood - from enrolling.

Lani Guinier, a professor of law at Harvard University, says the backlash to school desegregation was due in part to what W.E.B. Du Bois has described as the "psychological wages" of Whiteness where even the poorest White person was superior to a Black person.