[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11464-11470]
[From the U.S. 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 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

[[Page 11465]]

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- 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.

[[Page 11466]]

  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 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

[[Page 11467]]

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 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

[[Page 11468]]

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 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

[[Page 11469]]

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.
  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

[[Page 11470]]

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.

                          ____________________