Linda Brown, who was a third-grader when her father tried to enroll her in an all-white school near her integrated neighborhood in 1950, then sued the school district in a case that eventually ended the "separate but equal" doctrine, has died at the age of 75.
I was watching a MLK Jr. special the other night on CNN or MSNBC, and they showed people being beaten and having dogs sicced on them. I was thinking how brutal people were back in the old days, then I realized that was all happening in the 1950s and 1960s, so really not that long ago. It made me feel kind of good that people have gotten a little bit better over time.
In the 1980s I had an African American lady boss, and she pointed out to me that I'd gone to a segregated school, if I went to school in GA in the 1960s. I said "nah, I don't think so." Sure enough, I started to think about it, and realized all of my classmates were white. So we have come further than we think (I know, tell that to all the black guys getting shot by the cops).
I was literally across the street from the district we were assigned to, so they wanted us to take the kid to the school half a mile downhill and across a four-lane highway instead of the one we could see from our doorstep.
I am a total nerd & will admit to excitement. I'm no 45, but I will never say no to some charts & graphs. I'll bet I'd not be the only one who'd be grateful for the knowledge, too. Is it before tax day (April 15)?
My schools in central Missouri weren't integrated until 1965 - so that's 11 years after the SCOTUS decision. I think that's pretty embarrassing. The fact that we achieved integration in 1965 was due entirely to the leadership and hard work of Mrs. Muriel Battle, an outstanding local African-American educator and school administrator. She was a social studies teacher who rose to become a department chairperson, assistant principal and principal. She was highly intelligent and accomplished, as were her husband and her 4 children. She held a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama and in history from Florida A&M University, and master's and doctoral degrees in educational administration. Her husband, Elliot, was president of his class at Tuskegee University, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees, and later a doctoral degree in Missouri. He was the principal at the segregated school in our town until 1965, after which he became the first African American teacher in the newly-integrated high school.
In recognition of Muriel's many achievements, our town named the new high school after her in 2013. Well you wouldn't believe how a lot of white folk bitched about this, including some educated people who ought to know better. They are still bitching about it. They roll their eyes when they say "Battle High School."
My mother, being a woman who judged people by the content of their character, thought it was a historic day, so she toke her 8mm movie camera to my elementary school and recorded the first day of desegregated education in our town. I still have that film, and you can watch it if you like. The interesting part is the Hindu lady who supervised the school street crossing - her husband was an exchange professor at our local university, and her son was in my class. Her son had been allowed to attend our segregated school, while local African American children had not. It was bizarre.https://youtu.be/fuaWxUVTExM
Schools may have been integrated by law in 1954 but if schools were organized in neighborhood districts, then if the neighborhood was segregated (still legal until 1965) then the schools were de-facto segregated. I am white and I grew up in suburban MD outside DC and I never saw a black pupil in school until after 1965. But I was born the week after Brown vs Board of Education was announced and I always hold that my life was lived in the context of racial brotherhood because of that.
We have completely eliminated legally enforced racial segregation through. That's a huge plus. Now racial segregation is seen as so socially unacceptable that even when racists are determined to bring it about, they usually pretend that's not what they're doing.
Umm... when the AIDS story broke in the 80s Americans were torn between rounding up the gays into concentration camps or just executing them as a preventative measure.
Rockwell's image of her from a photograph (in case anyone says it didn't happen). There is an account by an eyewitness, John Steinbeck in 1962 from the book 'Travels with Charley'. He travels to New Orleans to witness the protests:
"He watches white women (called “cheerleaders”) hurl “bestial and filthy and degenerate” words at “the littlest Negro girl you ever saw.” In a draft of the chapter, Steinbeck had included the actual words of the cheerleaders, but his publisher was afraid of law suits. The insults were cut.
Steinbeck describes the scene as a performance: “Anyone who has been near the theater would know that these speeches were not spontaneous. They were tried and memorized and carefully rehearsed. This was theater. I watched the intent faces of the listening crowd and they were the faces of an audience. When there was applause, it was for a performer.”
I was watching a MLK Jr. special the other night on CNN or MSNBC, and they showed people being beaten and having dogs sicced on them. I was thinking how brutal people were back in the old days, then I realized that was all happening in the 1950s and 1960s, so really not that long ago. It made me feel kind of good that people have gotten a little bit better over time.
In the 1980s I had an African American lady boss, and she pointed out to me that I'd gone to a segregated school, if I went to school in GA in the 1960s. I said "nah, I don't think so." Sure enough, I started to think about it, and realized all of my classmates were white. So we have come further than we think (I know, tell that to all the black guys getting shot by the cops).
good one, as Warren as gov of California signed off on the Japanese internment.
I was literally across the street from the district we were assigned to, so they wanted us to take the kid to the school half a mile downhill and across a four-lane highway instead of the one we could see from our doorstep.
Ike. Harry was kind of a racist asshole too, but they were all about the rules.
wait now! didn't Obama first invent and then end racism? aren't we supposed to be post-racial?
I am a total nerd & will admit to excitement. I'm no 45, but I will never say no to some charts & graphs. I'll bet I'd not be the only one who'd be grateful for the knowledge, too. Is it before tax day (April 15)?
He redeemed himself. I think that today it's hard to imagine the toxic combination of unquestioning racism and war panic that led to the internment.
My schools in central Missouri weren't integrated until 1965 - so that's 11 years after the SCOTUS decision. I think that's pretty embarrassing. The fact that we achieved integration in 1965 was due entirely to the leadership and hard work of Mrs. Muriel Battle, an outstanding local African-American educator and school administrator. She was a social studies teacher who rose to become a department chairperson, assistant principal and principal. She was highly intelligent and accomplished, as were her husband and her 4 children. She held a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama and in history from Florida A&M University, and master's and doctoral degrees in educational administration. Her husband, Elliot, was president of his class at Tuskegee University, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees, and later a doctoral degree in Missouri. He was the principal at the segregated school in our town until 1965, after which he became the first African American teacher in the newly-integrated high school.
In recognition of Muriel's many achievements, our town named the new high school after her in 2013. Well you wouldn't believe how a lot of white folk bitched about this, including some educated people who ought to know better. They are still bitching about it. They roll their eyes when they say "Battle High School."
My mother, being a woman who judged people by the content of their character, thought it was a historic day, so she toke her 8mm movie camera to my elementary school and recorded the first day of desegregated education in our town. I still have that film, and you can watch it if you like. The interesting part is the Hindu lady who supervised the school street crossing - her husband was an exchange professor at our local university, and her son was in my class. Her son had been allowed to attend our segregated school, while local African American children had not. It was bizarre.https://youtu.be/fuaWxUVTExM
Obama started racism, but the Dotard ended it!
Schools may have been integrated by law in 1954 but if schools were organized in neighborhood districts, then if the neighborhood was segregated (still legal until 1965) then the schools were de-facto segregated. I am white and I grew up in suburban MD outside DC and I never saw a black pupil in school until after 1965. But I was born the week after Brown vs Board of Education was announced and I always hold that my life was lived in the context of racial brotherhood because of that.
Black and white people living in harmony, hating the orange person.
Please give a us a review for those of us that will not be there.
We have completely eliminated legally enforced racial segregation through. That's a huge plus. Now racial segregation is seen as so socially unacceptable that even when racists are determined to bring it about, they usually pretend that's not what they're doing.
Not hard at all: look at Il Douche and his Muslim ban, and the closet Nazis who support it.
Umm... when the AIDS story broke in the 80s Americans were torn between rounding up the gays into concentration camps or just executing them as a preventative measure.
Rockwell's image of her from a photograph (in case anyone says it didn't happen). There is an account by an eyewitness, John Steinbeck in 1962 from the book 'Travels with Charley'. He travels to New Orleans to witness the protests:
"He watches white women (called “cheerleaders”) hurl “bestial and filthy and degenerate” words at “the littlest Negro girl you ever saw.” In a draft of the chapter, Steinbeck had included the actual words of the cheerleaders, but his publisher was afraid of law suits. The insults were cut.
Steinbeck describes the scene as a performance: “Anyone who has been near the theater would know that these speeches were not spontaneous. They were tried and memorized and carefully rehearsed. This was theater. I watched the intent faces of the listening crowd and they were the faces of an audience. When there was applause, it was for a performer.”