While many on the right decry the lack of respect Americans now bestow on the U.S. Supreme Court and its 6-to-3 conservative majority — denouncing the shift in public opinion, a low 18 percent vote of confidence, as sour grapes from liberals who can’t get their way — it wasn’t always so.
In 1954, after the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the Constitution in Brown v. Board of Education, it was many who called themselves conservatives who expressed outrage and did something about it, ignoring the decision in order to maintain the segregated status quo. In a 1956 “Southern Manifesto,” a long list of lawmakers vowed to “pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution.”
What was deemed “lawful” by them often included actual violence inflicted on African-Americans who dared follow the court and the law toward an education that was their right as citizens. After all, they and their families had been paying taxes to support a system closed to them, as well as paying again for schools where they could learn.
To maintain a worldview of white supremacy built on lies of Black inferiority, some states and counties defied Brown with “massive resistance,” closing entire public-school systems — as Prince Edward County, Virginia did for five years — rather than tolerate Black and white learning side by side. Private, all-white “segregation academies” sprung up to educate a portion of the populace, with publicly funded vouchers enabling parents to escape integration until such evasions were ruled unconstitutional.
North Carolina’s Pearsall Plan was enacted with the same intent, to circumvent the Brown decision.
And though the South was the face of this “resistance,” some of the most rage-filled images of white resistance originated from Northern cities.
Schools have always been a battleground. And while race is not always the primary catalyst for the fight, to deny that it’s often in the mix is to ignore history and reality. For instance, the race-neutral insistence on the value of students attending neighborhood schools rings a bit hollow when redlining and housing discrimination have left a legacy visible on the streets where Americans have lived for generations. Schools across America have remained unequal, depending on ZIP code, when it comes to available educational options. In cities such as Chaicago, majority Black schools are also the first tagged for closure when budgets tighten.
It’s ironic, considering it was African-American voters and legislators who were key in creating public schools for Blacks and whites in the South in the late 1800s.
