Brown vs. Board of Education: celebrating a half-century of hope.(Education)(end of educational segregation)

Publication: USA Today (Magazine)

Publication Date: 01-NOV-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Society for the Advancement of Education

WHEN THE HISTORIC Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education was issued in 1954. I was a sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The response of the university's hierarchy and professors, along with the shared thoughts and debates of fellow classmates, spurred the decision into an open seminar throughout the campus.

Moreover, all during my freshman year, there were lectures, papers, debates, and numerous discussions, formally and informally, on the topic. These all centered on what the anticipated decision could, would, or should be. Therefore, May 17, 1954, was another 20th-century D-Day in black ,and white America.

I have some lifelong impressions and a 50-year memory bank that neither time nor space will permit complete expression. To begin, allow me to lift up a small handful of observations on the case that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and finally put it on the books that separate but equal was anything but, and that segregation no longer was the law of the land.

In 2054, our successors and offspring will observe the 100th anniversary of Brown. What we do and say now, or what we refuse to do and say, will impact the life of our nation and the future of our children. Brown u Board of Education did not occur in a vacuum. The...

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