"One More River To Cross"

Recognizing the Real Injury in Brown:

A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies

By: Charles Lawrence

Authors Argument:

Lawrence talks about how the Brown vs. Board of Education court case influenced our nation.  He argues that there will always be : "one more river" for blacks to cross.  Even though this got blacks and whites into the same school, that didn't erase the years of segregation in the past.

Quotes:

1)  "In short, segregation American-style, like South African Apartheid, has only one purpose: to create and maintain a permanent lower class or subclass defined as race."

Wow, this quote can really catch you off guard.  The only reason for South Africa is because of its production of race??  How can someone possibly think that.  This just shows how poorly these people were treated.

2)  "Segregation's only purpose is to label or define blacks as inferior and thus exclude them from full and equal participation in society."

This is a reason why the Brown case has such an important value.  I feel blacks do not suffer from having their own schooling because even when they got into the same school as the whites, they suffered and were not given the same education as the white kids.

3)  "Many black schools that existed within the segregated school systems of the South were in fact superior to their white counterparts."

This is quite surprising to me.  It seems like the blacks schools were the ones that always got the short end of the stick.  They were the ones that had all the bad materials.  However, this quote tells us that the Blacks' schools were better than the whites.  I don't know if this quote is true or if what I learned during my schooling is true, but I found this quote very interesting.

Comments/Questions:

I found this article really interesting.  I don't ever recall learning about the Brown verse Board of Education.  As you can see I did this late and I loved how we connected it to Remember the Titans.  This case took place in the 50's, and in that movie we see huge problems still existing in the early 70's.  Very interesting topic.