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Brown, Black, and Yellow: Desegregation in a Multi-Ethnic Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Joy Ann Williamson
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Extract

The Brown decisions have become part of our collective American memory. Students know that the 1954 decision ended legalized segregation in elementary and secondary schools and rightly understand it as a benchmark in educational history. However, when pressed for information on the decisions, few have ever read the original court documents and even fewer realize there were two separate decisions, that four states and the District of Columbia were involved, and that the South fought aggressively for years to nullify their effect on school attendance. To teach Brown is to deconstruct simple notions of Civil Rights Movement triumphs and visions of a country eager to right historical wrongs. I incorporate Brown into three of my courses, but for the purposes of this piece I will focus on my Education for Liberation class since I believe that its comparative approach to Brown—as well as the entire class syllabus—teaches the worth of looking at educational reform through a variety of lenses.

Type
Symposium
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 109 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the History of Education Society 

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References

Resources

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