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May 21, 2004/Sivan 1 5764, Vol. 56, No.35
With all deliberate speed
FLORENCE ECKSTEIN
Publisher
A slender Jewish woman stands in the pantheon of courageous Americans who have led the fight for civil rights. Her name is Esther Swirk Brown.
In 1948, when authorities in South Park, Kan., redrew district boundaries to exclude black students from a new elementary school - relegating them to a rundown, unsafe building with outdoor plumbing and two teachers - Esther Brown took action. She home-schooled black students and worked with their parents to sue the school district.
The NAACP, representing the plaintiffs, took the case, Webb v. Kansas, to the state Supreme Court, which in 1949 ruled that equal school facilities must be provided for all children. The South Park school board was forced to admit black students to its new facility.
"If it had not been for Mrs. Brown, we would not have gotten as far as we did as quick as it did," said Alfonso Webb, the lead plaintiff in the case. "It took a white woman who had determination and contacts to spearhead the movement. ... Black people were just too scared. ... Scared from history, scared from experience, scared from not enough experience."
Webb's words come from "Looking Back ... Reaching Forward," a curriculum for high school students prepared in honor of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision desegregating public schools in America. The curriculum is available at www.adl.org. (Linda Brown, the named plaintiff, is unrelated to Esther Swirk Brown.)
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court had established a separate-but-equal standard for public accommodations in Plessy v. Ferguson, a Louisiana case allowing racial segregation. Webb v. Kansas was one of a series of subsequent court decisions that chipped away at lawful segregation. Finally, on May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education, the court ordered that the doors of public schools throughout the United States be opened to every child regardless of skin color.
"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in Brown.
Implementing Brown "with all deliberate speed," as the Supreme Court ordered, has yet to be fully realized. According to the ADL, "nearly 7 million of the nation's 19 million black, Latina/o, Asian and American Indian children in 2001 were enrolled in public schools that were 90 percent or more students of color. This means that 35 percent of students are racially isolated in their classrooms."
Public education in our nation faces many other daunting challenges, including too little funding, too large classes, low teacher pay and debatable performance standards.
As we celebrate the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, we would do well also to recall the lesson that Esther Swirk Brown taught - that each of us has a lot to do to repair our public schools, with all deliberate speed.
Contact the writer at flo_eckstein@jewishaz.com.
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