May 17--Special Day in History : Court’s prohibition of school segregation changed America’s face forever

Forty years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court changed America. On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren, one of the giants of the court, announced the landmark decision, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. That historic ruling outlawed legal segregation in the public schools and extended the promise of the Constitution to all Americans regardless of race.

Persuaded by the brilliance of a team of attorneys led by Thurgood Marshall, a unanimous court struck down the so-called “separate-but-equal” dual system of segregated schools as unconstitutional. The justices directed school systems to act with “all deliberate speed” in implementing change. But in most places, school integration was postponed for years. A few districts simply closed their public schools rather than integrate.

The separate and generally inferior education reserved for black children continued despite the ruling; local governments typically spent much more to educate white children than was spent to instruct black children. In many school districts, black youngsters walked miles past white schools to reach dilapidated buildings and outdated books handed down from white students.

Though the inequity was the most severe in the South, it was bad in the North, too. Achieving integration required court orders, federal soldiers, courageous children and still braver parents, who lost farms, jobs and homes because they dared to challenge an immoral status quo. The victories were legion, but the battles still are not over.

Today, two out of three black children attend schools with predominantly nonwhite enrollments, according to a report from the National School Boards Assn. Latino children are even more likely to attended segregated schools, particularly in the West, including California. This new segregation forces some to ask whether Brown failed. Absolutely not.

The success of Brown is measured by the dramatic increase of the black professional and middle class. The positive political legacy is quantified dramatically by a count of black elected officials and judges.

May 17, 1954, indelibly changed U.S. race relations. The profound agreement of all fair-minded Americans, whether white or of color, with the simple justice of the Brown decision is lasting proof of its greatest achievement.