[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 72 (Wednesday, May 14, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H4120-H4126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMEMORATING THE 49TH ANNIVERSARY OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to begin the
Congressional Black Caucus Special Order to commemorate the 49th
anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of
Education decision.
Mr. Speaker, the Brown v. Board of Education decision is one of the
greatest decisions of the United States Supreme Court. That decision
eliminated the ``separate but equal'' doctrine in our public school
systems and ended what was one of the most abhorrent policies ever put
in place in the United States.
``Today, education is perhaps the most important function of State
and local governments. It is required in the performance of our most
basic public responsibilities, even service in the Armed Forces. It is
the very foundation of good citizenship. Today, it is a principal
instrument in awakening a child to cultural values, in preparing him
for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally
to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may
reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the
opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity when the State has
undertaken to provide it is a right which must be made available to all
on equal terms.''
Mr. Speaker, these are the words that former Chief Justice Earl
Warren delivered in his opinion of the Brown v. Board of Education case
on May 17, 1954. These words still ring true today.
This Saturday will mark the 49th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of
Education decision, and sadly, Mr. Speaker, 49 years later, the promise
of Brown v. Board of Education still has not been realized.
The State of our public education system is extremely fragile. Not
only are we living in a society where our public schools are unequal,
but we are living in a society, 49 years after the death of Jim Crow,
where our students are still learning in separate environments.
In the 2000/2001 school year, at least half of the black students in
the State of Maryland attended intensely segregated minority schools. A
report released by the Harvard Civil Rights Project last year found
that the city of Baltimore has the most segregated school system in the
entire Nation; the
[[Page H4121]]
most segregated school system in the entire Nation, Mr. Speaker.
I have the privilege of representing an economically diverse
district, and I also have the privilege of visiting many of those
public schools in my district. It always troubles me when I visit these
schools and I am able to witness firsthand the disparities that exist.
In affluent areas of my district, the students have a computer on every
desk, while in the less affluent areas of my district, children seldom
get to use a computer.
Let me be clear. I am in no way saying that the children in affluent
areas do not deserve the highest-quality educational resources that can
be afforded them. But what I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that all
children deserve these same educational tools, regardless of the color
of their skin or the size of their parents' paycheck.
Not only do the schools in my district have an unequal distribution
of resources, but they also have an unequal distribution of funding. In
the 2000 school year, Maryland districts with the highest child poverty
rates had $911.95 fewer State and local dollars to spend per student
compared with the lowest poverty districts. Therefore, a public school
teacher with 25 students in a low-income district had to find a way to
prepare her students to succeed academically with almost $22,800 less
than a public school teacher of the same subject in a more affluent
neighborhood.
Mr. Speaker, when are we going to stop punishing our children for
being born into a socioeconomic environment that is out of their
control? When is our character as a Nation going to mature to the point
where we recognize that our future is decided by the investments we
make in all of our children and generations yet unborn?
Mr. Speaker, when presented with these disparities, some raise the
question of whether or not an increase in school funding for schools
with majority African American students or schools with majority low-
income students would really make a difference. Are these children
capable of achieving, some may ask? I submit to my colleagues that the
question is not whether or not our kids can achieve, because not only
can they achieve, but they are achieving despite the inequities.
For example, Mount Royal Elementary School in Baltimore, with a 99
percent African American population, the fifth graders outperformed all
students in the State of Maryland on the State math assessment test for
2 years in a row.
Although the previous example illustrates that our children can
achieve despite unequal funding and resources, we should not force our
children to survive on crumbs from the table. It is robbery to deny our
children the tools needed to learn. It is an offense of the highest
degree, for not only are we stealing their future, but we are stealing
ours as well.
Mr. Speaker, this discussion of separate and unequal is not only
about buildings and dollars; it is also about having challenging
curriculums, quality teachers, and real assessments that provide
teachers with usable feedback in a timely manner. This discussion of
separate and unequal is about not only ending discrimination by law,
but about ending discrimination by practice in our country.
When we leave our Nation's Capitol this evening and walk on to the
Washington streets, we will be walking into a tale of two cities, and
this is probably true in many of the major cities in America. One part
of our city is going to bed this evening filled with all of the
material things in life. In the other, children will go to bed hungry.
One city will live long and prosper due to the most advanced medical
technology in the history of humanity. The other city, Mr. Speaker,
will sicken and die before its time. One city is enjoying the fruits of
educational opportunity. The other city seeks to educate its children
with overcrowded classrooms and outdated books.
That reality is why we must seize this moment to remember the
struggle that culminated in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. That is
why we must use this position of trust given to us by the people of the
United States of America to reaffirm the vision and values that remain
the foundation of that decision. An America that is separate is
inherently unequal, and we must never accept that as a way of life.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus has made
H.R. 236, the ``Student Bill of Rights,'' the centerpiece of our
education legislative agenda. The legislation of the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) would move beyond theory and make equity in
our K through 12 system a reality. It would require States to have a
plan of action to eliminate the unequal funding of our public schools.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the United States House of Representatives and
the United States Senate to pass this legislation. We must get on with
the business of helping our public schools and securing our children's
future. We do not have a day to spare.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great honor to yield to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), who has fought continuously over
many, many years in the State legislature and here in this House for
children.
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), our distinguished chairman of
the Congressional Black Caucus, so much, and I am happy to stand with
him tonight as we embark upon the 50th anniversary of that
extraordinary decision by the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of
Education.
Today I would like to add my voice to those of my fellow colleagues
as we stand here to pay homage to the momentous Brown v. Board of
Education decision.
{time} 2045
Our Nation's history and, indeed, the history of African Americans
and other traditionally underrepresented minorities was forever altered
by this decision made on May 17, 1954. A group of 13 courageous parents
took part in a class action suit filed against the Board of Education
of Topeka Public Schools, and in doing so pledged to seek better
educational opportunities for their children.
Parents today are still seeking those opportunities for their
children. During this time in our Nation's history, public education
was not as extensive as it is today in terms of curriculum content or
even the length of the school year. Further, schooling for African-
American children living in the South was particularly nonexistent and
was even prohibited by law in some States. That is why the Brown
decision reverberates so deeply throughout the South and, indeed,
throughout the entire Nation. We must remember that the Brown decision
finally moved away from Plessy v. Ferguson where the Supreme Court
upheld racial segregation in schools and public places including
schools as long as it was separate but equal. Those facilities were
there and this is what happened given the Brown decision.
However, although the Brown decision was certainly one of the most
critical Supreme Court decisions of the last century, it did not
abolish school desegregation on its own. It took the dogged persistence
of committed individuals and civil rights organizations to pressure
school officials with the support of the Federal Government to force
them to comply with the law. About 15 years passed after the Brown
decision in 1954, before Southern schools were truly desegregated. And
in my home State of California, the segregated educational system also
remained for some time after the 1954 decision.
Following the Brown decision, many schools in the Upper South began
the process of desegregating their schools, but in the Deep South
resistance to change was strong. An opinion poll taken at the time
showed that up to 80 percent of the Southern whites opposed
desegregation efforts. The lack of a clear deadline for enforcing the
desegregation of schools was an issue. And the Supreme Court mandated
on May 31 of 1955 that school desegregation should proceed with all
deliberate speed. However, such language was unclear, and it continued
to frustrate African Americans and other civil rights supporters and
caused opponents of desegregation to emerge in the form of the White
Citizens Council and the Ku Klux Klan.
The resulting increase in violent attacks against African Americans
was not enough to deter the young African-
[[Page H4122]]
American students like the Little Rock Nine from seeking access to a
better education for themselves. We can look back on the struggles of
these determined African-American students as a turning point, not only
in expanding educational access for all but also as a defining moment
in this Nation's civil rights movement, a moment that we do not wish to
have turned away or taken off of the radar screen, Mr. Speaker.
We have made progress in terms of dismantling desegregation in our
Nation, but we continue to face new challenges in terms of meeting the
educational needs of our ever-changing population where minority
students are still receiving unequal education.
I am gratified to have lived through the changes brought on by the
Brown decision to our Nation's schools and, indeed, our way of life.
But I am still dedicated and committed to ensuring that African-
American students have quality education in our schools. I am deeply
committed to ensuring that this peace that was brought on by the
Supreme Court does not become a dismantled or even an eradicated piece
of civil rights legislation and movement that this country certainly
deserved to keep.
As we embark upon the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of
Education, the Congressional Black Caucus will be looking with great
interest as to what this Supreme Court and, indeed, this deliberative
body does for the African-American children of this country.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman
from Missouri (Mr. Clay), who too has worked hard in the area of making
sure that these living messages that we send to a future we will never
see are well educated and who are treated fairly and allowed to be all
that God meant for them to be.
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, tonight we look back nearly a half century to the 1954
case to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka and the impact on this
Nation.
The Supreme Court took a bold step at that time to right the wrongs
and correct years of injustice. The court stepped out of the box to do
what was right. Even so, in Missouri the city of St. Louis and county
schools continued to defy the high Court as a large segment of children
continued to attend segregated schools and receive an inferior
education. Regrettably, it took a local court case in the 1970s to
desegregate St. Louis city and county public schools.
On a personal note, my family was subjected to the sordid history of
segregated schools. My grandmother, Luella Hyatt, was born in suburban
Black Jack, Missouri, in the early 1900s and was denied access to
schools there. She was forced to move to St. Louis City to attend
school with other African Americans.
Segregated schools were tragic and the ramifications of children
receiving an inferior education put them at an economic and social
disadvantage, from their receiving outdated hand-me-down books from
white children, to their lowly social standing overall.
It cannot be said enough that children of color suffer greatly. In
that context Brown v. Board of Education was a remedy to right a
grievous wrong.
Today as we look back and then turn again towards the future, I am
dismayed. I am not dismayed at how Americans have continued to undo
past wrongs. Nor am I dismayed at the shoulders on which I stand and
what they tried to accomplish. Integration in the context of their
times had its merits. What dismays me is that any lessons we can learn
from the past appear to be lost on this generation of leaders. And for
that I feel we must find a fix.
In retrospect, a lot of things have happened in education since the
1950s. The nobility of true integration was not accomplished and a new
form of segregation has taken the place of the old. Yet, while Brown v.
Board of Education was certainly about education, it was about much
more. It was part of a long chain of events which each successive
generation took a turn to right wrong and chip away at racism and
segregation. Now it is our turn to try and attain that elusive ideal of
one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
I am a product of public school. I have always been in support of
public education. A public education has served my wife, Ivy, and I, as
well as my daughter, Carol, who also attends a public elementary school
in the city of St. Louis; and, in fact, her school, Kennard Classical
Junior Academy, was one of 15 schools in the State of Missouri recently
given the distinction of a gold star status. So not all public
education is problematic.
Both St. Louis and Missouri have a lot of relevant educational
history. For example, the St. Louis public schools opened the Nation's
first kindergarten. And in the 1840s it was illegal for African
Americans to read and write. First Baptist Church Pastor John Berry
Meachum took matters into his own hands. Mr. Meachum opened the Freedom
School on a barge in the Mississippi River which was Federally owned
and thus out of the reach of State law. And at the college level, a
1938 Missouri case, Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, found that the
University of Missouri by denying a black student administrations to
its law school, though it did create a separate black law school in a
building housing a movie theater and a hotel, created an unfair
privilege for white students that did not extend to similarly qualified
African American students.
Mr. Speaker, like a strait jacket, segregation debilitated this
Nation for generations. But the victory of Brown v. Board of Education
was not happenstance. It was the result of a well-thought-out strategy
by a progressive people trying to build a progressive Nation. Comprised
of a combination of five lawsuits from around the Nation, Brown v.
Board was argued using expert witnesses to show the psychological and
sociological damage of inferiority done to black children as a result
of segregation.
Convinced separate but equal violated the equal protection clause of
the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the high Court would ban
segregation in public schools. As we all know, desegregation was not
immediate, easy, nor complete. In a separate decision known as Brown II
in 1955, the Court set desegregation guidelines. But without deadlines,
only the infamous ``with all deliberate speed'' in the opinion,
segregation lingered and segregationist met integration with violence
and hatred. With integration, some whites fled to the suburbs creating
de facto segregation in urban schools. And as the urban core
deteriorated by the outflow of population and businesses, the urban
schools have essentially become second class schools, separate and
unequal, despite the law.
In closing, I want to thank the leadership in the Congressional Black
Caucus for scheduling this time to mark the anniversary of a major
milestone. Certainly the shortcomings of the last half century were no
fault of Brown v. Board of Education. Certainly it was not the children
who dutifully woke up every morning and attended classes in schools
provided by governments throughout this Nation. And most certainly it
is not the poor and economically impoverished Americans trying to feed
those children every day and trusting that one day their lives would be
better for them and their children.
The children have not failed. Those in government who build, staff
and fund this Nation's schools have collectively failed the children.
When government officials spend more to incarcerate than to educate, it
sends the wrong message to our youths. When government blames the
victims of racism, economic oppression, and cultural bias and punishes
them through denial, sanctions and promises left unfilled, then there
is no wonder the youth of this Nation have rebelled en masse against
education, a law-abiding life-style, and unfulfilled promises. Such
reality today is as important as Brown v. Board of Education was to
this Nation then.
The abiding purpose of government is to promote stability in our
communities and to care for those who cannot care for themselves. The
rich will always take care of themselves and many send their children
to private schools run by people they have a voice in choosing and in
facilities they help build. The common everyday citizen lacks that
luxury. With many of our public school systems in disarray, teachers
spending more time trying to maintain order and not teach, for millions
of American children the future is
[[Page H4123]]
not bright. Again, it is not because of Brown v. Board of Education;
rather, it is systemic failure of government to care about educating
our children.
God forbid that another generation of Americans indigenous to this
Nation remain undereducated, underserved and in poverty. That was the
real point, the real goal of Brown v. Board of Education. And that age-
old dream of future generations of equally educated American children
building a Nation capable of overcoming the burden of a segregated
divisive America has yet to come true.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
{time} 2100
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his
statement. The gentleman talked about his grandfather. I could not help
but think about my father and many of the Congressional Black Caucus
members who will come here tonight are descendants of former
sharecroppers and, of course, slaves, but I will never forget as I was
just about to introduce the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn)
when my father, who was denied an education living in Manning, South
Carolina, only got to first grade because he was made to plow the
fields and plant the cotton.
I will never forget on the day that I was sworn in standing where the
gentleman is standing right there, my father came down and met me out
here in the hallway after the swearing in, and the only time I had ever
seen my father cry, tears were rolling down his face. I said, Dad, what
is wrong? He said, now I see what I could have been if I had been given
the opportunity to have an education.
So that is just a perfect segue to our colleague, the former
chairman, but first I will yield to the gentleman.
Mr. CLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, of course, it
reminds me of an article I read yesterday about the gentleman my
colleague is about to introduce that his staff shared with us about his
father, and I do not want to take his thunder, but it talked about how
his father was denied a college degree from a divinity college in South
Carolina because he could not obtain a high school diploma because the
State law in South Carolina in the 1940s was that no African American
children could go beyond the seventh grade, and that tells me something
about the ramifications which I never lived through full-blown
segregation, but it certainly tells me about the ramifications of
segregation and about how we are to address righting that wrong. So it
brought tears to my eyes.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, and it
certainly gives me great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to yield to my
colleague from South Carolina, who has just dedicated his life to
tearing down barriers that are separating people from opportunity and
has given so much over the years and not even worrying about his own
convenience. And he is, of course, a former chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus and vice chairman of our Democratic Caucus
from the great State of South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn).
Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman so much for yielding
to me.
Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor tonight because I am a little bit
concerned about where we are and how we got here. Over the next year,
in fact, if I may, next May 17, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary
of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. That means that come
Saturday we will celebrate the 49th anniversary. Over the next year we
will hear a lot about Brown, and, in fact, on May 17, 50 years to the
day of that decision, there will be a new park opened in Topeka,
Kansas, to honor the case.
I do not begrudge the people of Topeka, Kansas, for their new park,
but I do have a real problem as a former history teacher with
revisionism because Brown took on the name for some very unusual
reasons. If we were to go by tradition and name cases based upon the
alphabet, this case would have been called Belton, because the case
coming out of Delaware, one of the five that led to Brown, was Belton
against Gebhart. If the case had taken on the name of the first to
file, it would have been called Briggs because Briggs v. Elliot, which
started in South Carolina, was first filed on May 16, 1950. Nine months
later, the Brown case was filed, February 28, 1951, and 3 months later,
May 23, the Davis case in Virginia was filed, and somewhere between
January and April of 1951, Bolling against Sharpe, the D.C. case, was
filed.
Mr. Speaker, I point this out tonight because the people of Clarendon
County, South Carolina, that I am proud to represent here in this body,
the birthplace of our current Chair's parents, both his mother and
father were born in Clarendon County School District No. 1, where this
case originated.
So tonight I wanted to come to the floor to put on the record the
exact history of Brown because so much is being said about this case,
and very little of it is accurate.
In a 1947 meeting on the campus of Allen University in Columbia,
South Carolina, Reverend J.A. DeLaine heard a speech challenging the
ministers who were independent from the system to get involved in
helping to right some of the wrongs that existed in our society.
Reverend DeLaine left that campus that day and went back home to
Summerton, South Carolina, where he began to meet with his church
members, and in 1947, he asked the parents to petition the
superintendent of schools to ask for a school bus.
At that time parents were sending their kids to school having to walk
9 and 10 miles one way. They were denied a school bus, and so they
pooled their resources and raised money to buy a used bus to transport
their kids to school. Gas was expensive, and the bus was old, and it
kept breaking down. So they went to a local farmer, Levi Pearson, and
in 1948, Levi Pearson filed a lawsuit asking for his children, who at
that time were walking 9 miles one way to school, to be provided
transportation.
We have got to understand that all the white kids in that county were
riding school buses, but black kids were denied a school bus.
The case was thrown out because Levi Pearson's farm was in both
school districts, both the Manning school district and the Summerton
school district, and on a technicality they decided that Levi Pearson's
house was in the Manning school district and not the Summerton school
district. So the case was thrown out.
In 1949, Reverend DeLaine met with the NAACP and petitioned the all-
white county school board to provide equality of education for their
children. It, of course, was denied. So in October of that year, they
all met in the home of Harry Briggs and his wife Eliza.
Anybody that comes into my office today will see on my wall a great
picture of Eliza Briggs. For as long as I serve in this august body,
Mrs. Briggs' picture will have a prominent place on the wall of my
office.
Mr. Harry Briggs was an attendant at a filling station. He was fired
from his job for signing the petition. They eventually moved to Florida
where they lived out their productive lives, moving back to Clarendon
County when they were no longer able to be productive.
In 1950, the school board refused to respond to the petition, and
then in February 1951, the State of South Carolina entered the case on
behalf of the school board. So not only were these people denied by
their county school board, but now they were being fought by their
entire State mechanism.
In 1951, the State of South Carolina decided that it would use all of
its resources to preserve a separate but equal, inherently unequal,
school district.
In 1953, the Supreme Court heard arguments, and on May 17, 1954, 4
years and 1 day from the time the case was first filed in Summerton,
South Carolina, these people got what they sought, and that was a
decision by the United States Supreme Court that separate but equal was
inherently unequal.
I want to share with the folks who are looking in tonight a couple of
statements from three descendants of these, I would call, brave, heroic
people. They are all here in Washington today, and on yesterday here in
Washington, here is what Harold Gibson had to say. He said that ``my
mother and father was faced with a choice. Take your name off of the
petition or be evicted from your home. They were evicted on Christmas
Eve.''
Ms. Annie Gibson, Harold Gibson's mother, her picture is on the wall
of
[[Page H4124]]
my office, and it, too, will always be there for as long as I am here.
Listen to what the DeLaine brothers had to say about their dad, J.A.
DeLaine, whose father spearheaded the case: Our house was burned to the
ground. Shots were fired into the new home into which we had moved.
When my father fired back, local authorities issued a warrant for his
arrest. For their safety, the family fled in 1955 to Buffalo, New York,
and it was not until the year 2000, 25 years later, that the State of
South Carolina dropped the charges against Reverend DeLaine. Now, it
was 45 years later from the time of the charges, but 25 years after his
death.
I bring this out tonight because when I went to work for John West in
1971, John West, the Governor of South Carolina, received a letter from
Reverend DeLaine. Reverend DeLaine wrote Governor West and said that he
was getting up in years, his health was beginning to fail, and he
wanted to come home to South Carolina to die. John West asked me to
look into the case and to plan a homecoming for Reverend DeLaine. He
wanted us to have a ceremony that would mark an end to this episode and
to be a new beginning for the State of South Carolina.
We could not bring Reverend DeLaine back home because there living in
Clarendon County was one of the original people who swore out the
warrant, and in spite of the Governor's pleadings, the law enforcement
officers' pleadings, he refused to drop the case.
{time} 2115
So Reverend DeLaine came back as far as Charlotte, North Carolina,
where he eventually died and is buried.
Now, the case of Briggs. Listen to what Nathaniel Briggs, says: ``My
father worked at a gas station. It was owned by the mayor of Summerton.
He lost his job and my mother lost her job at the local hotel.''
Mr. Speaker, I want to close my comments by thanking our Chair of the
Congressional Black Caucus for organizing this Special Order tonight,
and to close on this note. As historic as this is, the fact of the
matter is we have not gotten there yet. In fact, come August, the State
of South Carolina will be hearing a case in the same courtroom where
the Brown case started as Briggs against Elliott. In that courtroom, we
will be listening to arguments over whether or not it is constitutional
to still underfund school districts with high populations of black
students.
In South Carolina today, the law is that we in the State are required
to provide a public education, but we are not required to provide an
adequate education. And, therefore, schoolchildren in school districts
with high black populations are not being funded to the same level as
school kids in other districts. And I want to point out, as I close,
the inequity. Today, in South Carolina, school districts with higher
percentages of African American students have 313 fewer State and local
dollars, fewer than students with school districts of low levels of
African Americans. This inequity translates into a gap of $8,000 a year
per classroom and more than $1 million a year per school. That tells
the story.
So though Brown is now 49 years old, equal educational opportunities
have not come to Clarendon County or South Carolina yet. Hopefully,
this case that will be heard in August will be decided before May 17,
2004, and decided by law and equity, so that, hopefully, as we
celebrate the 50th anniversary of Brown, we can celebrate the beginning
of equitable education for black people in Clarendon County, South
Carolina, and our Nation. I thank the chairman for allowing me this
time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman.
And may I inquire, please, as to how much time I have left.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chocola). The gentleman from Maryland
has 15 minutes remaining.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the distinguished gentleman
from Virginia (Mr. Scott).
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding to me, and I am honored today to praise the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund for inaugurating the Red, White, Blue and Brown Campaign
to commemorate next year's 50th anniversary of the landmark decision
Brown v. Board of Education and to help ensure that the spirit of Brown
is fully understood and realized.
The decision is special to me because when the case was decided I was
an elementary school student in a segregated public school. My father
was a member of the local school board and was on the short end of many
four-to-one votes as the decision was being implemented.
I served in the Virginia legislature with several members who had
actually voted for and against so-called ``massive resistance.''
Massive resistance was Virginia's sad reaction to the Brown decision.
Virginia took advantage of the language in the Brown decision which
referred to the right to education with the phrase ``Such an
opportunity where the State has undertaken to provide it is a right
which must be made available to all on equal terms.'' Under massive
resistance, Virginia decided not to provide any public education at all
rather than to integrate. As a result, schools in Prince Edward County
were closed from 1959 to 1964.
In Prince Edward County, 117 African American students chose to
strike rather than attend all black Moton High, which was badly in need
of repair. Moton had no gymnasium, cafeteria, infirmary, or teacher
restrooms. The overflow of students was housed in an old school bus and
three buildings covered with tar paper. Local parents had repeatedly
sought improvements from the local school board without success.
Students initially wanted a new school building with indoor plumbing to
replace the old school.
Strike leader, Barbara Johns, enlisted the assistance of NAACP
attorneys. The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward
County, was filed in 1951 on behalf of the students by the Virginia
NAACP attorneys Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson. The United States
District Court ordered equal facilities to be provided for black
students but denied the plaintiffs the admission to the white schools
during the equalization program. Attorneys for the NAACP filed an
appeal, which ultimately became consolidated with other cases,
including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
Because of the deplorable conditions in virtually every black
segregated school, many suggest that segregated schools are illegal
because they are always inferior and that that was the decision in
Brown. In fact, the lesson of Brown is that segregation in and of
itself denies equal educational opportunities. The court wrote in the
Brown decision: ``We come then to the question presented: Does
segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race,
even though the physical facilities and other `tangible' factors may be
equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal education
opportunities? We believe that it does.''
A philosopher once noted that those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it. So I am delighted the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
is instituting this initiative to remind people what Brown was all
about and that the fight for equal educational opportunity did not end
with Brown. The lesson of Brown still applies today.
Let us look at the issues we are debating as we speak: minority
enrollment in State universities, not only affirmative action at the
University of Michigan but also issues involving the vestiges of dual
higher education systems in most Southern States; vouchers, the very
scheme used in Virginia to fund segregated academies while public
schools were closed; disparate funding of education, inner city schools
spend significantly less per student than suburban schools; Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act, whether a free and appropriate public
education can be denied to individuals with disabilities; resegregation
of schools, forty percent of black students in 2000 attended schools
which were over 90 percent black; High stakes testing, we know that
poor students, non-English speaking students, students with
disabilities, as well as many minority students receive an education of
lesser quality than their counterparts. The use of high stakes testing
in educational decisions only exacerbates these inequalities,
especially since many of those tests have been found to be racially
biased. Even the President's
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own faith based initiative, which for the first time since 1965 allows
sponsors of federally funded programs to discriminate in hiring based
on religion and, de facto, race, since 11 o'clock on Sunday is still
the most segregated hour of the week.
So I am delighted that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is instituting
this initiative to remind people that the fight for equal education did
not end with Brown. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund was there with the
filing of Brown and remains vigilant and on the case today with this
commemoration of the spirit of Brown to once again fight to have all
children properly educated. While the legal defense fund may be best
known for its work in Brown v. Board of Education, its historic
involvement began in 1935, when the legal defense fund lawyers Charles
Houston and Thurgood Marshall won the legal battle to admit a student
to the University of Maryland.
Education has been the cornerstone of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund's
push for social justice. The legal defense fund knows the truth of the
language in the Brown decision, which states: ``It is doubtful that any
child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the
opportunity of an education.''
So I am pleased that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, under the
distinguished leadership of Elaine Jones, is continuing its long
tradition of legal action in the education area. America is better
because of that tradition.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his wonderful
statement, and I yield now to the distinguished gentleman from the
great State of Illinois (Mr. Davis).
Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for
yielding to me and also for his leadership as chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus.
We gather here this evening to mark the 49th anniversary of Brown v.
Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. The question is, How should we take
note of this date?
I would guess for many Americans living today Brown v. Board of
Education is the best known, perhaps the only known, Supreme Court
decision. The decision has achieved almost mythical status. For some,
Brown was a statement on centrality of education.
Only this morning I had the opportunity to speak from this same well
on Carter G. Woodson's observations about how, if you control a man or
a woman's mind, you do not have to worry about how they will act.
Brown, for me, was a step forward in freeing the minds of African-
American children.
For others, Brown was a kind of milestone, a launching point, if you
like, of what we like to call the civil rights movement, the civil
rights era. Historians will argue about cause and effect, about the
many other struggles obtaining that midpoint of the century. But there
is no doubt that Brown was a powerful symbol, an impetus for the
acceleration of the struggle for African-American equality.
For still others, Brown signaled the death knell for a system of de
jure segregation which consigned African Americans to a life of
separate and unequal. The death knell may have well been sounded by
Brown, but vestiges of the institution of segregation and inequality
remain even today, some in new mutated and perhaps even more malignant
forms than those which existed 49 years ago.
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt Brown represents the power and
potential of masses united in struggle for justice and equality. The
larger question before us tonight is, has Brown achieved its goal of
equality in education and educational opportunity for African
Americans? The sad answer, after so many decades of struggle, remains:
No.
In 1980, the typical African American school student attended a
public school that was 36.2 percent white. In 1996, the typical
African-American school student attended a public school that was 33.9
percent white. Segregation remains the norm for the typical African-
American child. The percentage of 18- to 24-year-old African Americans
who had completed high school in 1975 was 64.8 percent. In 1995, 76.9
percent.
The total number of doctorate degrees awarded in 1996 in the fields
of geometry, logic, number theory, topology, computing theory,
astronomy, astrophysics, acoustics, nuclear chemistry, theoretical
chemistry, atmospheric physics and chemistry, meteorology, geology,
geochemistry, paleontology, mineralogy, geomorphology, hydrology,
oceanography, marine science, engineering physics, engineering science,
nuclear engineering, ocean engineering, petroleum engineering, systems
engineering, biophysics, plant genetics, bacteriology, endocrinology
and zoology, the total number, was 1,605.
{time} 2130
The total number of doctorates awarded to African Americans in these
fields was zero. In 2000, for the sixth consecutive year, the number of
African Americans earning doctorates reached an all-time high. That
year, 1,656 African Americans received doctoral degrees. But this
impressive string of annual increases in African-American doctoral
awards came to a halt. In 2001, African-American doctoral awards
declined to 1,604, a drop of 3 percent.
So tonight on the eve of the 49th anniversary of Brown v. Board of
Education, equality or equal opportunity is beginning to diminish from
what had even been achieved. Even in my State, the State of Illinois,
the Land of Lincoln, there are school districts which spend almost
three times as much money per pupil as other school districts because
of the formula used to fund education. There is no way you could call
that being equal.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for
taking out this Special Order and again commend him for his leadership
as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my hour to the
distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), former
chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), the
Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, for organizing this special
order and yielding to me. I join with him this evening to recognize a
pivotal anniversary in American history. On May 17, 1954, in Brown v.
Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial
segregation in our Nation's public schools must be ended with all
deliberate speed. In its unanimous vote to overturn the 1896 case of
Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the doctrine of separate but
equal, Brown v. Board of Education laid the cornerstone for all of the
progress towards equal education opportunity for blacks in America.
The Brown decision was the beginning of the end for legal segregation
in public places in the United States. The African-American community
in particular increased pressure on the legal and political
establishment to bring an end to State-sanctioned segregation in all
public facilities. Of course, we all know about the importance and
accomplishments of the civil rights movement. We also know that these
achievements were hard-earned. Often they came with an enormous price.
The Brown v. Board of Education decision was based on the equal
protection clause of the 14th amendment. It is also based on the fact
that segregation is dehumanizing. The Court acknowledged that the
impact is even greater when it is supported by the sanction of law.
While we have made much progress for our struggle toward equal
educational opportunity, current events demonstrate that there are
significant clouds on the horizon. Consider, for example, the tenuous
status of affirmative action programs. We are at the threshold of what
could be the beginning of the end of affirmative action programs in our
colleges and universities. The Supreme Court will soon rule on the
constitutionality of the University of Michigan's undergraduate law
school admissions plans. While I fervently believe that these programs
are fully constitutional and defensible, the Michigan case could well
be decided against affirmative action. The consequences of such a
decision on minority admissions to colleges and professional schools
could be enormous. If the Michigan case results in a ruling against
affirmative action, we will turn the clock back and retreat from our
commitment to providing equal educational opportunity for African
Americans, Hispanics and all minorities.
[[Page H4126]]
Mr. Speaker, history has already recorded that the President of these
United States of America, George W. Bush, revealed his true feelings
about equal opportunity for all of America's children when, in fact, on
January 15, Martin Luther King's birthday, 2003, the President of the
United States, using divisive language claiming the Michigan program
was a quota program, announced his support for the lawsuit against the
University of Michigan, opposing the most reasonable affirmative action
program ever implemented in this country.
Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States, who claims an
education policy of leave no child behind, a President who claims to
have a program of outreach to minorities, a President claiming to want
to attract African Americans to the Republican Party, is actually a
President who wants to have it both ways. I say this to the President
this evening, using his own words as he described the United States'
allies, in his preemptive strike against Iraq, he said to the allies,
``You're either with us or you're against us.'' Mr. President, I say to
you this evening, You're either with us or you're against us. And, Mr.
President, you cannot be with us as you destroy our chances to access
education and better our lives, the lives of our children and the lives
of our families and our communities.
Mr. Speaker, I will close by just sharing this with you. The Supreme
Court unanimously agreed that segregation of children in public schools
solely on the basis of race did, in fact, deprive minority children of
equal education opportunities. Their answer was the right answer, the
only moral answer, the answer that has driven the progress of the civil
rights movement for the last 50 years. As we recognize and commemorate
this important milestone in the civil rights movement, we must remain
forever vigilant to ensure that we will continue our progress towards
equal educational opportunities and not allow conservative zealots to
return us to the days of separate but equal.
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