Two Cheers for Brown vs. Board of Education

In this essay, “Two Cheers for Brown vs. Board of Education”, written by Clayborne Carson, the intention is to share his overall opinion of the civil rights case, Brown v. Board of Education. This is evidenced across the text, where he expresses his opinions in regard to the effectiveness of the case. Brown v. Board of Education is considered a landmark United States Supreme Court case, one in which the court declared unconstitutional the states laws that had established separate public schools for black and white students. Carson develops his idea by providing a historical perspective of the results of this case, and the racial dilemmas that came with it. According to him, the case did not help the African American people as much as it was made to look set to achieve. This shows that the struggle for the desegregation of the American public school system is not over and that the fight is to continue for many more years.

This case brought up problems that went far beyond the topic of education, seeing as it set a precedence upon which protests leading up to the enactment of the voting Rights Act of 1965 were set. In his essay, Carson uses supporting facts to send the reader into deeper thinking as to what transpired throughout the case. In addition, after the ruling of the court, white residents tried to desegregate schools further, by not sending their children to schools that were predominantly black populated (Muller 2011). This indicates the prevalent resistance at the time, in as far as the war against racism and segregation was concerned. The court ruling was occasioned by intense retaliation, especially seeing as whites filed lawsuits in order to challenge the credibility of the court’s decision, cutting on pre-pupil funding. Further, white monopoly power ensured that most blacks lost their jobs among other things.

A sound majority of white Americans were openly unwilling to forego the racial privileges that were ascribed to them, in order to bring racial equality. They demonstrated their unwillingness to allow large-scale desegregation, which would have altered the racial composition of the schools and residencies within their neighborhoods. Instead, they employed all available mechanisms towards the maintenance of segregation. On the other hand, African Americans applauded Brown’s decision to institute legal proceedings against the Board of Education, however, failure of the court to realize Brown’s affirmation of the harmful impacts that arose from the enforcement of segregation on black students led to black discontentment. Brown argued that separating black students from others of similar age on the basis of their race attached feelings of inferiority to their status in the community. Years after the court’s decision, only a few black students stood spared of the inhumanity of segregation; the ruling did not enable a large enough number of black and white students to come together, if, in fact, the Brown decision made school segregation worse. 

Over and above, segregation, an evil that had to be eradicated compulsorily, was still highly practiced in schools and black students still suffer the unfortunate fate of the same. For example, many southern black schools lack basic school necessities like libraries, running water and electricity due to lack of funding. There was no guidance provided by the Supreme Court on how to implement desegregation, further discussions, however, arrived at a decision that tasked local federal judges with the supervision of school desegregation on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed (Muller 2011). This came to be known as brown II, which was the plan of the Supreme Court published a year later after the Brown’s decision.

Although Clayborn Carson is right on many counts, I strongly disagree with his opinion that the Brown case did not work. This is because many African Americans are now able to apply and get into colleges of their own choice, something that did not happen before the browns’ case. Moreover, today white and black students can study together peacefully, as compared to the previous times when whites did not get along with the blacks completely. Students feel more secure and less threatened by coming together regardless of their race. Where there is still room for more improvements in the struggle for desegregation, I acknowledge that the Brown’s case did bring change. 

Brown’s decision greatly shaped the trajectory of African American history. Although it would take many more years for the desegregation of the public school system to be attained, the Brown’s decision was responsible for getting the process underway. It was truly significant, seeing as it overturned the separate but equal doctrine as established by the Plessy decision; moreover, the decision energized the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and in the 1960s. Nevertheless, years later after the browns’ decisions, quite a good number of black American students still attend schools that are predominantly black, with limited opportunities for academic advancement compared to the predominantly white schools. However, it is important to recognize that education is the basic requirement of any child regardless of their race, and as such, the government has played its role relative to the provision of equal opportunities to every student. 

Reference

Muller, G. H. (2011). The McGraw-Hill reader: Issues across the disciplines . New York: McGraw-Hill.