Joanna, on this thread last week questioned school integration.
"People unite to smash Boston bussing plan!" Proto-RCP in '74 on Boston Busing. Article and Book References/Bibliography ... Hunter, Allen and Jim Green, "Racism and Busing in Boston" by Allen, Radical America Nov-Dec, 1974 and then a pamphlet. Also see responses in May-June 1975 RA. ... http://www.revolutionintheair.com/biblioarticles.htm
http://hnn.us/articles/4320.html
>...Easily the most impressive event of the conference thus far was the two-hour discussion held tonight at the Union United Methodist Church on the subject of Brown v. Board of Education: A Fifty-Year Legacy. The discussion featured John Hope Franklin, Charles Ogletree, Lani Guinier, Derrick Bell, and, astonishingly, Robert L. Carter, a member of the NAACP legal team that argued the case before the Supreme Court and subsequently became a judge for the Southern District of New York. Carter couldn't be heard beyond the first few rows, which was unfortunate because he seemed to be the only member of the panel who took a positive view of Brown. The others found numerous reasons to view the legacy of the decision that ended school segregation de jure as decidedly mixed.
Derrick Bell, described by Ogletree as "one of the most mild-mannered radicals you will ever meet," compared the decision to Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation. In 1863, as in 1954, blacks jubilantly celebrated what appeared to be a great advance in civil rights and social progress. Only later did they realize that their situation in fact had barely improved. Moreover, the gift whites had seemingly offered out of a sincere impulse actually reflected depressing calculations of self-interest. In 1863 Lincoln acted in order to strike a blow at the South's labor system. In 1954 the federal government acted only because segregation had become an embarrassingly obvious enough defect in American democracy as to become a weapon against us in the ongoing propaganda wars with the communists.
Lani Guinier, speaking with great passion, argued that because of the way race is used in this country, Brown became a reason for working class whites to turn hostile toward African-Americans. While their real beef was with the white power structure, they blamed black integration for the decline in their public schools which followed the Brown decision in subsequent years. Several times as she spoke the audience broke out in applause. She noted that the very year Central High School was integrated in Little Rock, a new high school opened a few miles away for affluent whites. That working class whites left behind in Central High then turned angry toward blacks was inevitable "because we don't have a vocabulary of class."
Ogletree wondered if perhaps too much was being made of the negative consequences of Brown. Wasn't it really a great victory, as advertised? Derrick Bell, softening his earlier criticism, said that it was a great symbolic victory. "Without the Brown victory," he said, "we might not have had the resistance movement." But at this John Hope Franklin noted that the resistance movement actually predated the Brown decision and was really a result of World War II. After the war black soldiers wouldn't accept second class citizenship.
Judge Carter at this point angrily insisted that Brown was a real victory not just a symbolic victory--and he didn't care what Lani Guinier said. She sat smiling awkwardly. John Hope Franklin again noted the importance of World War II, to which Judge Carter replied, that he remembers what happened after World War II too, but that Brown helped bring about change.
For people who like their history neat and tidy it was a disturbing moment. But to historians in the room it was just another example of the rich contradictions in history and proof, if ever it was needed, that history truly is an argument without end.
-- Michael Pugliese
Michael Pugliese