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Liberation and Frustration: Fifty Years after Brown

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Richard J. Altenbaugh*
Affiliation:
History of Education Quarterly
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Extract

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The point which we must aim at is to obtain admission for our children into the nearest school house and the best schoolhouse in our respective neighborhoods.

Frederick Douglass (1859)

Type
Editorial
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the History of Education Society 

References

1 Douglass is quoted in Litwack, Leon F. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 17901860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 142–43. The emphasis is mine. Also refer to Altenbaugh, Richard J. The American People and Their Education: A Social History (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2003), 96.Google Scholar

2 Kluger, Richard Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 407–09, provides a thorough social and legal context leading to the Brown ruling as well as detailed background of the principal actors.Google Scholar

3 Russo, Charles J. “Brawn v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),” in Jones, Faustine C. et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), 65–68; idem., in Altenbaugh, Richard J. ed., Historical Dictionary of American Education (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999), 61–62, 296–97. Cash, KrinerPlessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 357–58. Kluger, Simple Justice, 272. See also Altenbaugh, The American People and Their Education, 302.Google Scholar

4 Altenbaugh, The American People and Their Education, 302; Kluger, Simple Justice, 131–37; Fleming, John E. and Diggs, Edna C. Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 299–300; Brown, Johnny Edward and Akins, William C.Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 451–52; Newby, James E.McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, et al., 339 U.S. 637 (1950),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 284–85.Google Scholar

5 Kluger, Simple Justice, 450; Russo, Charles J. “Brown v. Board of Education” 65–68; Wilkinson, J. Harvie III, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954–1978 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 28, 32.Google Scholar

6 Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke, 78, 86, 103, 105–06, 108, provides superb periodization for this phenomenon. See as well Altenbaugh, The American People and Their Education, 306. Melba Pattillo Beals offers a personal perspective of the Little Rock Nine in Warriors Don't Cry: A Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High (New York: Washington Square Books, 1994).Google Scholar

7 Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke, 55–56, 78; Edwards, Lisa WilliamsSwann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 449–51; Russo, Charles J. “Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971),” in Altenbaugh, The Historical Dictionary of American Education, 356–57; “Bell, Derrick A.Keyes v. School District No. 1, 413 U.S. 189 (1972),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 244–46.Google Scholar

8 See Ronald, P. Formisano's analysis, Boston Against Busing: Race, Class, and Ethnicity in the 1960s and 1970s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).Google Scholar

9 Orfield, Gary Eaton, Susan E. et al., Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown v. Board of Education (New York: New Press, 1996), 9, 10–13; Marshall is quoted on p. 29. Refer as well to Russo, Charles J.Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974),” in Jones, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African-American Education, 293–94; idem., “Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974),” in Altenbaugh, Historical Dictionary, 293–94.Google Scholar

10 Wilkinson, From Brown to Bakke, 78, mentions a fifth stage in the desegregation experience, i.e., resegregation. Orfield, et al., Dismantling Desegregation, 16–22, 27, thoroughly analyzes the entire resegregation process.Google Scholar

11 Sam Roberts analysis of the 1990 census in, Who We Are: A Portrait of America Based on the Latest U. S. Census (New York: Times Books, 1993), uncovered this profound, demographic trend. Subsequent U. S. Census data have corroborated this pattern.Google Scholar

12 Douglass is quoted in Altenbaugh, The American People and Their Education, 160.Google Scholar