A powerful atmosphere for new ideas

The photograph is horizontal, showing a historic two-story, brick and limestone building built in 1926. Monroe Elementary was one of four segregated schools for black children in Topeka, Kan. One of the students there was Linda Brown.

The photograph does not show what happened there on May 17, 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that such segregated schools, operating under the concept of “separate but equal,” were unconstitutional.

Nor does it show the tears a white photographer shed as he stood in front of that school in November in the early morning sun.

“I was overwhelmed,” says Dennis Keeley. “It’s really something to realize that the place where you stand feels no different than any other place you’ve been to in your life except that you know something went on there that’s unbelievable, that it’s a place where new ideas came about and people decided it was not right to have segregated schools.”

It is a meaningful picture, says Keeley, but, ultimately, it is only a picture.

The image is included in “Through the Gates: Brown v. Board of Education,” which opened Thursday and runs through July 31 at the California African American Museum. The exhibition is more than recognition of the 50th anniversary of the ruling, say curators Isabelle Lutterodt and Karin Pleasant.

Although the show looks back, it is also a starting point for examining the current state of education in terms of community, race, economics, legislation and self-motivation, they say.

“We want to create that space for people to think,” says Pleasant, “for people to talk and for people to really feel that they can make a change, because there’s no reason for people to think that they can’t.”

The exhibition includes the work of 15 artists, diverse in terms of ethnicity, age and gender. There is also an exhibit looking at the history of desegregation in California schools.

Rick Moss, former program manager at the museum and now chief curator at the African American Museum & Library at Oakland, organized the historic component of the exhibition, which looks at key federal and state court cases, beginning with Plessy vs. Ferguson, which in 1896 legally enforced segregation in accordance with the principle of “separate but equal” facilities.

In California, says Moss, segregation in some public schools ended with the 1947 ruling in Mendez vs. Westminster, a case in which a group of Mexican American families challenged segregation in four Orange County school districts.

That same year, Gov. Earl Warren signed legislation ending legalized segregation in public schools throughout California. Warren later became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and in 1954 wrote the opinion in Brown vs. Board of Education.

There were others who played key roles in both the Mendez and Brown cases. Thurgood Marshall, as lawyer for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, filed briefs in the Mendez case and later represented the plaintiffs in the Brown case.

“The importance of Brown vs. Board of Education is that it did focus on education, and it focused on how future generations of America would see themselves, whether they would see themselves as being inferior, separate, different -- or as people involved very much in the making of our country,” says Moss. “We can’t abandon those ideals as a nation.”

The ruling also hastened other victories in the civil-rights movement, but while it brought together children of different ethnicities into the same classrooms, it did not integrate their parents, says co-curator Isabelle Lutterodt.

“It was a decision that had black people and white people going into the same classroom,” she says. “Those kids still went home to their families, and those parents were not integrated, so this burden of integration lay on these children.... What a heavy burden to place on a child.”

For the exhibition, artist John Outterbridge, 70, built an outhouse. Outside it is a sign indicating that it’s for white people only; inside are images and words addressing racism, justice and the civil-rights movement.

“I wanted to equate -- the best I could -- the White House with being a kind of outhouse,” he says, “a place for policymakers to sit and stink.”

In conceptualizing the piece, Outterbridge thought about how on Dec. 29, 1955, after having served in the Korean conflict, he was traveling in full uniform through Virginia to his family in Greenville, N.C., and was ordered to the back of a bus.

“I sat down and just cried, man. From that day, I became an activist-oriented person and artist.” He says Southern California, because of its diversity, provides an opportunity for art to effect change.

“Almost every culture in the world is in the Los Angeles school district, and we have an opportunity to touch those cultures. I think we can do that with music and dance and art and the written word, if we will.”

Other artists in the show are Kim Abeles, Makeda Best, Joe Ceballos, Sam Durant, Kianga Ford, Jen Liu, Elliott Pinkney, Ama Schulman, Dread Scott, Colette Veasey-Cullors, Larry Walker, C. Ian White and Deborah Willis.

Monroe Elementary School is now a national historic site, enclosed by a fence and not yet open to the public. When photographer Keeley, recently appointed chairman of the photography program at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, requested access to the building, he was told that yes, someone could let him “through the gates.” The title of the show was taken from that comment.

Returning to Los Angeles, Keeley realized something about what one picture could do, and what it couldn’t do.

“I learned something really important about books and history and education and change,” he says. “People look at history books, and the reason they can’t connect is because it’s a picture. People can’t realize what it is to be in those situations. This is just another picture.”

He calls his photograph “Not for My People,” a title inspired by an encounter before his trip to Topeka. He was working in his studio while listening to Bessie Smith recordings, he says, and as he was leaving, he saw a sculptor, an African American man, who worked in the studio next door.

“That was some great music you were listening to,” the man said to Keeley, who replied that Smith’s era must have been a great period to be alive.

“Not really for my people,” the sculptor said.

And what about now? In the cafeterias of many integrated schools, as in many places with diverse populations throughout Southern California, students still group themselves based on ethnicity.

“Art changes people who invite change,” says Keeley. “I don’t think art has really the power to change the people that it’s supposed to change, but it certainly creates an atmosphere for that to happen. And these are times when we need lots of art, lots of invitations for change.”

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‘Through the Gates’

What: “Through the Gates: Brown v. Board of Education”

Where: California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday

Ends: July 31

Price: Admission is free. Parking is $6 per vehicle (buses $10)

Contact: (213) 744-7432

Also

The museum will sponsor other events in conjunction with the exhibit: a screening of the film “Separate but Equal” at noon Saturday; a discussion led by artists at 1 p.m. Feb. 28; an art workshop with Sandy Rodriguez at noon March 27; a panel discussion presented by the USC Center for Urban Education at 5:30 p.m. April 7; and an art workshop with Kara Lynch at noon April 24.