Brown v. Board of Education's impact on school desegregation and American justice

Brown v. Board of Education

In the opinion of this paper, there is no doubt at all that the U.S. Supreme Court decision in May, 1954 -- Brown v. Board of Education -- changed the nation in a very positive way. And it changed the nation not just in the sense of setting the wheels in motion to end school segregation, but by bringing justice to one segment of the American population that was ultimately a positive for the whole nation. Brown v. Board of Education was a confirmation that the U.S. Constitution was still the guiding democratic principle -- that it had not been permanently abandoned in the south by the cruel racist policies during the Jim Crow era. This paper reviews and critiques the Brown v. Board of Education (referred to in this paper as just "Brown") decision, the reactions to Brown, the resistance to Brown, and ultimately the positives that resulted from Brown.

Reasons why Brown v. Board of Education Brought Positives to the Nation

A personal essay by Dr. William B. Harvey presents a first-hand account of what it was like to be an African-American boy growing up in North Carolina in the 1950s. Actually, Harvey was 6 years old when Brown was ruled on by the High Court. At six years of age, Harvey was "…keenly aware of segregation and what it meant" as he attended a racially segregated elementary school (Harvey, 2005). "Segregation was mean and ugly and humiliating. It was a state of affairs that made you know your place and that kept you in your place." If you happened to be black, "…your place was at the bottom," Harvey remembered on page 43. He recalls having textbooks that had been used by white students but given to the black segregated schools "…when [the white] schools received new ones" (45).

Harvey writes that he had an "epiphany of sorts" on a field trip in North Carolina. The University of North Carolina planetarium in Chapel Hill allowed "…the little colored children of the state" to visit one day a month, and he was fascinated with the "…astrological phenomena" and was "quite taken" by the exploration of the cosmos by huge telescopes (44). While walking across campus, back to the school bus "…it occurred to me that I could not be a student at this wonderful institution, which was supported by taxes paid by my parents" (44). He was given to wonder what the "…learned professors were saying to their students" in classes like history, ethics, and political science, about "…the incredible duality that existed outside the windows of the classroom" (44). What Harvey saw during the period of segregated schools -- even after Brown became law -- was a nation that "…provided liberty and justice for some" (44).

Positives that the Supreme Court Decision Brought About

Sociology professor David J. Armor argues that Brown "…aimed to end legally sanctioned segregation, sometimes called de jure segregation," and, he adds, there is "no question the ruling did that." That clearly points to a positive for the American society and for law under the Constitution. Armor is adamant about this issue because some critics of the ruling insist that Brown "…failed to desegregate schools" and that assertion is partly "untrue" and also partly "a distortion of the goals of Brown" (Armor, 2006, 40).

Certainly, as history has shown, desegregation did not happen instantly, although no one familiar with all the racial and political dynamics assumed that it would happen very quickly. It wasn't until the 1970 Swann decision, Armor points out, when the Supreme Court gave its approval to a "…comprehensive racial balance" manifested in the busing plan for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area of North Carolina, that specifics on how states and cities would fully desegregate schools were offered by the Court (40). This got the desegregation ball rolling, and in the north, the 1974 Keyes decision (in Denver, Colorado) helped get the huge task of desegregating schools moving toward.

Amor adds on page 41 that no matter how school segregation is measured or evaluated in America, there is "…no question," Amor continues, that segregation was "…reduced substantially during the 1970s and 1980s across the country."

Another positive that the Brown decision can take credit for is the fact that children born in the north were able to attend racially integrated schools fairly soon after Brown without having to go through the turmoil that was going on in the South. Sheryl T. Smikle, an instructor at Vassar College, was born four years after Brown, and "…six years later [when she was 10] I entered elementary school in the northwest section of the Bronx" (in school district #10), which offered "excellent public and private schools -- both of which were amenable to educating white and black students together" (Smikle, 2007).

In conclusion, the statement by the Congress of Racial A Reality (CORE) sums up the positives for school children of African-American heritage regarding the Brown court decision: "The Brown decision initiated educational and social reform throughout the United States" (CORE). Moreover, the Brown court decision was "…a catalyst in launching the modern Civil Rights Movement… [and] brought American "one step closer to living up to its democratic ideas" (CORE).