Unsung Heroes: Charles Hamilton Houston

“The Black Studies Program: Strategy and Structure” was published Fall of 1972 in The Jounal of Negro Education. It’s contents are a relection on the years before when colleges and universitys were allowing African Americans to attend , but did not provide curriculum about or for African Americans.

Albritton Gives readers a brief history of historic higher educational black Institutions better know as (HBCUs) in this publication . Albritton also explains and includes how and why (HBCUs) were established. Albritton explains financing sources and needs after some time, and an examination of statements of purpose. Albritton also considers the pertinence of (HBCUs) here in the present twenty-first century setting. Albritton makes a contention that the instructive open doors HBCUs offer keep on being firmly required in the contemporary U.S. financial and political

The Chicago Public School system was slow to integrate even after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954. It took much protesting, federal involvement and public outrage to finally bring about more racial equality for the students of Chicago. While the Brown v. Board of Education ruling is thought of as being the reason any racial equality was brought to schools after such long hardships for the African American students, Chicago had a difficult time bringing the ruling to fruition and federal involvement was needed. The Chicago Public School’s Desegregation Consent Decree of 1980 was the order that changed the public schools for the good. Chicago’s story of integration is different than those of other big cities in the U.S, due to the federal government 's large involvement. Through the years after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, the School Superintendents changed and school desegregation was faced in different ways. This essay examines what led to the federal government 's involvement with the Chicago Public School system’s desegregation plan. As well as the effects of desegregation on all students in Chicago.

4) Facts: Since the verdict made by the Supreme Court on the Brown v. Board of Education case, little enactment was made in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina’s school structure. There are 107 schools altogether, in which the student population is 84000. Within the structure, there are 21 schools in which 14000 African Americans attend that are 99% of their race only. The rest of the African American students, about 10000 students, attend integrated school. In this case, the plaintiff, Swann, had come forth to bring the board of education to the court. It all started when Dr. Darius Swann, professor at Johnson C. Smith University, wanted to enroll his child to an almost all white school closer to his home, which he was rejected.

Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that the separation in schools was unconstitutional. The ruling of this case allowed the "coloreds" to go to school with the especially privileged white children. Until this time, the whites had always gone to a school full of white teachers and other white boys and girls. Up until then, no one had ever witnessed a colored child going to a white school. White adolescents had never had a face to face experience with a black child. Brown v. Board of Education ended the verdict of Plessy v. Ferguson that was finalized 60 years before (Brown v. Board of Education). This was one of the incredible first steps to the end of the racist journey America traveled

The book “Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy” by James T. Patterson is about the struggles leading up to the fight for the desegregations of public schools and the outcomes. The struggles accelerated to civil rights movement in the 1950s. Patterson describes in details about the difficult road to the Supreme Court, the outcome of the Supreme Court decision, the resistance by whites people, especially in the Deep South and the struggles to implement the challenging transition. Discriminatory practices were apparent in the United States but it was a lot worse in the Southern States. The Jim Crow Law mandated the segregation of public schools, public places, public transportations, restrooms, restaurants,

Even after the Supreme Court decision in 1954 in the Brown v. Board of Education case, very little had actually been done to desegregate public schools. Brown v. Board of Education ordered the end to separate but equal and the desegregation of public schools; however, the court provided no direction for the implementation of its decision. Authority was pushed to the Attorney Generals of each state to create and submit plans to proceed with desegregation. Southern states were against the court’s decision and many refused to pass any new legislation. Swann sued the Board of Education in Charlotte, North Carolina because of the racial inequality and lack of efforts to desegregate

However, it did not all end there, in February 1958, the Little Rock school board petitioned the local federal court to acclaim delaying their integration plan due to the board exclaiming that there was too much “chaos, bedlam, and turmoil” going on in Central High School, ever since the African American students enrolled. The court agreed along with them, ordering that the students need to be removed from the school and the integration plan should be postponed for two and a half years. Speaking for the little rock nine, the NAACP appealed the decision to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, and undoing the lower court’s decision and conveyed that the delay would violate the constitutional rights of African American students, which lead to the U.S Supreme Court to finally reviewing the case and later declaring that the African Americans will stay at Central High School and the school board must continue with the integration plan. Brown v. Board of Education provided the foundation for school integration during the 1950s and 1960s, while Cooper v. Aaron provided the

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. It was a court case in which the Supreme Court ruled that using busing in order to achieve the end of segregation between different races is permitted (). Busing is the “transportation of school district lines” in order to promote desegregation (Shumsky). Busing was the government’s way of interfering in the segregation problem. The government tried to integrate different races by issuing “strict guidelines governing hiring practices, unequal facilities” for African American people (Shumsky). The government interference in the issue of segregation caused many parents to pull their children out of public schools. There were different departments as well that pushed the interaction of different races. The Department of Justice had 500 school desegregation acts that helped desegregation happen. The departments of Health, Education and Welfare took 600 actions to force desegregation (). These departments worked extremely hard to integrate different races. If these departments had acted on this issue earlier, desegregation would have occurred

In the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court declared school segregation "inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional. Despite the Court’s decision, there weren’t any immediate changes to the school system across the nation. There were also many oppositions. Three months after Brown vs. Board passed, an African American psychologist, Kenneth Clark charged the New York Public school of persisting with segregation and creating an inferior environment as well as unequal education. As a result, New York City establish the Commission on Integration to find ways to integrate the city’s public schools. In 1958, the Harlem Nine parent’s boycotted to keep their children out of Harlem’s junior-high school since they were

Board of Education children of color had safer conditions than before, thus, it did not prevent them from receiving an education. Students like Linda Brown were not equal even when they were separate because the people in her neighborhood had the privilege of going to a school that is closer to their house. “Equal protection” did not exist for colored students, even with equal facilities because the schools’ were not equal in locations. An African-American should not be intimidated and discouraged to continue an education because of a proposed danger of reaching school every day. They all deserve an opportunity to succeed, and an education is essential for one to prosper.

Throughout the history of America issues around race have brought great debate and augments. Being a nation birthed from ideals of freedom and undeniable human rights, America has failed in being truthful to its founding. The treatment of African-American is an atrocity that stains the history of our nation’s past. Steps have been made to heal the injustice, but they are just steps. In this essay, I will be discussing school desegregation focusing on the landmark and controversial Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education and the effect is had on the nation and even the world. Many people ignore the fact school segregation has not been fixed. The Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education is just something people learn in their social studies class. Most think this case was the end of the story and schools were desegregated and everything was happily ever after, but this is sadly not the reality. The reality is Brown has failed us. The effects can be seen in the schools of today in many American cities but in this essay, I will use the case of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to illustrate the massive shortcomings of this ruling today.

Today—nearly fifty years after the Brown decision—explicit endorsements of school segregation have been erased from all state and federal laws, yet the faces of American schools remain eerily similar to those of the 1950s. Current funding inequalities between poor and wealthy districts perpetuate the same inequalities between the races that state-sponsored segregation once did.

The Brown v Board of Education case was a landmark case. This case stated that separate schools for black and white students was unequal. This is the start of integrating African American students into white schools. Advances for African Americans in the South were almost always met with massive resistance from the white population (Schultz, 2013). African Americans and any white sympathizers were beaten, picketed and even killed (Schultz, 2013). White Citizens’ Councils were created to defend segregation, and The Ku Klux Klan was revived. There were even those schools in the South that closed rather than integrate African Americans into the schools.

Education is a valuable service in society that strengthen a workforce, a nation and bring forth awareness. Why should this be limited based on race or because of economic reasons, the quality should represent where the schools are located, if they are public? The Public School system belongs to society and those who contribute to what supports the education system. In choosing Brown v. Board of Education, a case which continues to have a great impact to this day, taking into consideration what was occurring at the time is how this case can be fathom. Today, equality is flawed, but far from the injustices of the 50s. However, steps such as the case of Brown v. Board of Education, others alike, and they were more than a court cases; the revolution needed for change. “On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal” (The Learning Network, 2012).