[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[May 17, 1994]
[Pages 935-940]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Question-and-Answer Session on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme 
Court Decision in Beltsville, Maryland
May 17, 1994

    The President. Good morning. Do you know why we're here? Why are we 
here, somebody?
    Q. To talk about the Brown v. Board of Education decision and how it 
affects us today.
    The President. That's right, we are. What was the ruling in Brown v. 
Board of Education? What did the Supreme Court say?
    Q. That ``separate but equal'' was unjust and unconstitutional.
    The President. And what were the facts in the case? What gave rise 
to the case? What was the case about?
    Q. Unsegregating schools in the South.
    The President. In the South and in Topeka, Kansas. It was about a 
little schoolgirl named Linda Brown whose parents thought she should not 
be sent to a segregated school. The United States Supreme Court made 
that decision in 1954, 40 years ago today. Before that, the Su-


[[Page 936]]

preme Court had ruled that ``separate but equal'' was constitutional, 
right? And when the Supreme Court makes a ruling like that, it's the law 
of the land until they change their minds.
    During the Civil War, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation 
Proclamation freeing the slaves, in 1863 in the White House, on the same 
floor that I sleep every night, in what is now the Lincoln Bedroom--the 
room where your father spent the night last night, right? Secretary 
Riley's 93-year-old father spent the night last night in the room where 
President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the 
slaves.
    Secretary Riley. He said he heard Lincoln all night long. [Laughter]
    The President. Then, after the Civil War was over, the 14th 
amendment to our Constitution was adopted, which declared that everybody 
had to be equal under the law. But there was still a lot of racial 
prejudice in the country and a lot of discrimination. And a few years 
after that, the Supreme Court decided a case called Plessy v. Ferguson. 
Have you studied that? And the problem with Plessy v. Ferguson was that 
blacks and whites had to sit in a different place on the train, and the 
14th amendment said that nobody could be discriminated against under the 
law. And by law, they were required to sit in a different place on the 
train. So what did the Supreme Court say in Plessy v. Ferguson?
    Yes?
    Q. That trains or whatever were equal, and they could be separate.
    The President. That's right. If the facilities were equal, they 
could be separate without violating the 14th amendment, right? So the 
Brown decision overruled that. Now, why did they overrule that? What was 
the argument? Why was ``separate but equal''--what's the matter with 
that?
    Go ahead.
    Q. Well, people were still being----
    The President. So they----
    Q. [Inaudible]
    The President. One argument was that even though they were supposed 
to be separate but equal, they weren't really. Right? Okay, what else? 
What else is wrong with ``separate but equal''?
    Q. That if they are separated, they wouldn't be equal.
    The President. That's the heart of it. Because they were separated, 
right, they wouldn't be equal. That's very important. The argument was 
that if they were separated, the act of separating people by race under 
the law itself was a message of inequality.
    Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Nearly everybody believes 
that now, right?
    You look around this room today. This is America: people from all 
different racial and ethnic groups. We have one county in America, maybe 
more than one but at least one, Los Angeles County, that now has people 
from 150 different racial and ethnic groups. And someday, if the 
population trends continue, the number of nonwhites in America will be 
greater than the number of whites, so that everybody will be ultimately 
protected by a requirement that no one can be discriminated against by 
the law based on their race.
    But the essence of Brown was two things, and you guys got them. One 
is, well, they're not really always equal, these separate facilities. 
The other is, the act of separating people by their race under the law 
is itself an act of inequality.
    Now, since then, we've had all kinds of problems and challenges with 
the aftermath of the Brown decision. You know, what do you do when 
people's living patterns are separate? That's how busing got into the 
whole issue of how to integrate the schools. And what do you do when 
people in one place are a lot poorer than people in another place? And 
how do you deal with the practical problems? There are all kinds of 
practical problems. Many of them have been solved more satisfactorily in 
places like in magnet schools, where people come as a matter of choice. 
And they come together and you try to get different kinds of people, 
both different races and different incomes.
    So I wouldn't--by no means have all the problems that were dealt 
with in the Brown decision, the problems of racial inequality and income 
inequality and the history of discrimination, those problems have not 
all been overcome. And today we have some new problems, at least 
problems that are more severe. There's more violence. The families and 
communities are under greater stress. There are a lot of problems that 
you face that people our age 40 years ago didn't face. We know that.
    But the number one lesson I want to leave with you is that this is a 
very much better coun-


[[Page 937]]

try because of that Brown decision, and it is a very different country 
because of the Brown decision. And the three people who are here with me 
today each have a different insight on that.
    But I want you to think about how different the country might have 
been. We're in the basketball playoffs now, so I'm thinking about this 
is the first one in a long time where Michael Jordan hasn't played. 
Michael Jordan played at the University of North Carolina: Would he have 
been able to play there, would he have even gone there if there had been 
no Brown decision? We're not sure.
    So I want to introduce these three people, each in their own turn, 
and ask them to say something. First, I'd like to start with Thurgood 
Marshall, Jr. His father argued the Brown decision and many other 
decisions before the Supreme Court and became the first African-American 
Justice on the Supreme Court. He now works in the White House on the 
staff of Vice President Gore. And I'd like to introduce him and have him 
say a few words.
    Mr. Marshall.

[At this point, Mr. Marshall made brief remarks on the importance of the 
case and the responsibility of society and all individuals to advance 
the spirit of the case.]

    The President. I'm going to give you a chance to ask them questions, 
too. But I want all of them to talk first.
    One of the big issues that was inevitably a part of the Brown 
decision was, okay, the Supreme Court says you can't have any ``separate 
but equal'' school districts anymore. They're unconstitutional. Well, 
it's one thing for a court to issue an order and another thing for 
millions of people to change their lives, right?
    I mean, how are you going to integrate all these schools? And what 
happens to the teachers, and what happens to the principals? And how do 
the kids get to new schools? And do the white kids go to the black 
schools, or do the black kids go to the white schools? Do you have to 
build new schools? There are mind-bending details that had to be worked 
out, plus the fact that in many parts of the country, there were still 
millions of Americans who didn't agree with the decision who were 
determined to resist it at every turn.
    So the Supreme Court's in the news this week because I just 
appointed Judge Breyer from Boston to the Supreme Court. And he's a very 
distinguished judge. I think he'll do a wonderful job. And they'll have 
these hearings in a couple of months, and you'll be able to follow that. 
And I urge you to follow these hearings, see the questions they ask him 
and the answers he gives. Supreme Court's very important.
    But the Supreme Court is nine people. They don't have any 
enforcement authority. So, then the lower courts have to somehow figure 
out how to enforce an order and approve plans and do things to try to 
figure out how was this Brown decision going to be implemented.
    One of the States involved in the Brown decision in addition to 
Topeka, Kansas, was the State of South Carolina. Secretary Riley, the 
Secretary of Education, was the Governor of South Carolina before he 
became Secretary of Education. His father was the lawyer for one of the 
school districts involved in the desegregation effort in Brown 40 years 
ago. And he, as a Governor, made a national reputation for his 
commitment to improving the education of all the children of South 
Carolina, which is why I named him the Secretary of Education. So I'd 
like for him to talk a minute now about this Brown decision and what 
happened after it was decided and how it affected his life.
    Secretary Riley.

[Secretary Riley described growing up in a segregated environment, his 
experience in integrating the schools of South Carolina, and his regret 
for the lack of social interaction with African-Americans during his 
youth.]

    The President. After the Brown decision was decided, like I said, 
all people had to figure out, well, how are we going to integrate our 
school system, and how fast? So they went back to the Supreme Court, and 
there was a second Brown decision that said ``with all deliberate 
speed.'' So, who knows what that means, right? For people who didn't 
want to integrate, they said ``with all deliberate speed'' might be 4 or 
5 years. For people who did want to integrate, they said it would be 4 
or 5 weeks.
    So that was the issue there: How long could they take to integrate? 
And the court order in Greenville said, `` `All deliberate speed' is 30 
days. Do it.'' And they did it, because they had leaders like Secretary 
Riley and his family who believed it was the right thing to do and who 
made it work. I'll say a little more about that in a minute. But 
believing in your heart that

[[Page 938]]

something is the right thing to do makes a big difference in whether it 
gets done or not.
    Now, after these things happened, there was still resistance to 
integration all across the South and in other parts of America, and 
there were still other questions that had to be resolved and other 
issues about how this would be done.
    In my home State and Mr. Green's home State of Arkansas, in Little 
Rock, there was a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court 
involving the Little Rock school system, called Cooper v. Arens, which 
was also a very large decision in the whole history of the Supreme Court 
law affecting the schools.
    In Little Rock, the then-Governor of our State called out the 
National Guard to stop the integration of the school, which had been 
ordered by the Supreme Court, devised by the local school board. And 
then the President of the United States, as you saw in the movie, took 
over the National Guard and used it to protect the right of Ernest Green 
and eight other people to attend Little Rock Central High School.
    I want him to talk a little bit about his experience, how he felt, 
what he went through. You saw the movie, which was premiered, 
interestingly enough, in the auditorium at Little Rock Central High 
School, and he and I were there the night that it was premiered in the 
auditorium where he became the first black student to go and to 
graduate. He's done rather well. I want him to tell you a little bit 
about what he's doing with his life now so you'll understand the 
enormous consequence of this decision. But first, I think you need to 
understand a little more about what happened. So I'd like to ask Mr. 
Green to talk now.
    Ernest Green.

[Mr. Green described his experience in integrating Central High School 
in Little Rock and pointed out the connection between the Brown decision 
and developments in South Africa.]

    The President. I want to give you a chance to ask questions, if you 
have any questions of any of them or me. But let me just follow up on 
one thing Mr. Green said.
    You heard Dick Riley say how much he regretted the fact that he grew 
up in a segregated society. A lot of us who were southerners, who grew 
up in the South, really knew better. We knew that segregation was wrong. 
And we knew that--those of us who were white knew that it was hurting 
us, that we were being deprived of the opportunity to know people, to 
share their feelings, to share their life experiences, to share their 
music, their culture, to deal with people who were just being cut off.
    And the things which happened to integrate the country integrated 
the South, at least in the beginning, more than any other part of the 
country because it was the most segregated part and it was the part that 
had the highest percentage of African-American population. And I am 
convinced that those things, first the education decisions and then the 
voting rights decision, they did help to inspire and give energy to what 
ultimately happened in South Africa.
    The United States contributed $35 million last year to helping to 
build democracy in South Africa, helping train people to vote, helping 
conduct, show people how to run the elections, helping to figure out how 
this could be done. But I also have to tell you that I think it is 
virtually inconceivable that I would have ever become President of the 
United States had it not been for the Brown decision because of the 
relationships--and the voting rights decision--and the relationships 
that subsequently I developed with the African-Americans in my State 
whose support helped to make me Governor and with people around the 
country who made me President. So there is a sense in which, in very 
tangible, real ways, these decisions freed a lot of Americans to be more 
than they otherwise would have been.
    So, do you have any questions to any of them or me that you want to 
ask? Yes, in the back.

[A student asked Mr. Green what kept him going in that very difficult 
situation. Mr. Green said that his main motivation was the goal of 
opening up opportunities in Little Rock, but that support from the other 
eight students involved and their families and churches was important.]

    Q. When you were in school, how did integrating your school affect 
you?
    The President. My public schools were not integrated until 2 years 
after I left. That's the point I was trying to make with Ernest. The 
integration of the schools throughout the South basically took about 15 
years after the Brown decision. So I'm a little bit younger than Ernie, 
not much.
    And so our school--what happened was, a lot of these school 
districts sat around and waited for the Justice Department to come after 
them, the Federal Government to say, where

[[Page 939]]

is your plan, or for somebody to force the States to adopt a plan. And 
that's why I wanted to make the point that after Brown v. Board of 
Education, all of these schools didn't integrate overnight, and it took 
a significant number of years before it happened throughout the South 
and throughout the country.
    Ernest Green. Mr. President, I think one of the things you want to 
point out about the Little Rock case is that Little Rock was much 
earlier than many of the other cases, and that the fact that the Federal 
Government finally used their power and might to underscore it may have 
helped, I like to think, fuel part of the modern civil rights movement.
    As you know from the movie, we had 1,000 paratroopers that came to 
Little Rock to enforce the Court order. But this was the first time that 
school desegregation had been undergirded by Federal support in that 
manner.
    The President. I also want to make another point that I think might 
have been passed over. Ernie mentioned this. Arkansas was actually a 
good candidate for a peaceful, successful integration of Little Rock 
Central High School. We were the first State in the South to integrate 
our law school. We had an integrated medical school. We had a newspaper 
in Little Rock, the Arkansas Gazette, which was, I think, one of the--by 
any standard--one of the finest papers in the country, which was 
strongly supportive of integration. We had a lot of leadership, white 
leadership, in Little Rock that was strongly supportive of integration.
    And in cases like this, when countries or cities or States can go 
one way or the other, the impact of leadership is pivotal. When the 
Governor called out the National Guard to stop the integration, it 
wasn't even all that popular in Little Rock; a lot of the white people 
didn't like it. But it was wildly popular out in our State in the more 
rural areas where the racial animosity was greater and the fear of 
change was greater. And so it was a politically popular decision. But it 
wrecked the chance we had to become the first southern State that would 
really have a beginning statewide successful, peaceful integration.
    Later when Atlanta began to integrate, a lot of leaders in Atlanta 
looked at what happened in Little Rock and said, ``We don't want that to 
happen here, and we're not going to permit it.'' Very interesting.
    So how people behave in times of crisis is very important and makes 
a big difference. The Court decision still is carried out by people, and 
as I said, what's in their heart makes a difference.
    Do you have any questions for them? Any more?

[A student asked Mr. Green how he felt on his first day at Central High 
School. Mr. Green replied that he and his companions were fearful, but 
television coverage of their struggle reinforced their determination to 
continue.
    Another student asked how Mr. Green's brother felt about the 
situation. Mr. Green said his brother thought he was a little crazy at 
the time but that his brother was now in the building trades, an 
opportunity he thought was directly attributable to the Brown decision.
    A student then asked Mr. Marshall how the Brown decision affected 
his life. Mr. Marshall responded that it gave him a perspective on 
current problems such as racism and violence and reminded him of the 
need for common efforts to oppose the politics of division.]

    The President. Go ahead, you're next.
    Q. This is for both Mr. Green and you, Mr. President. While the 
integration was going on, did you ever feel like taking the law into 
your own hands and doing something drastic? [Laughter]
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. President. [Laughter]
    The President. There are some benefits to this job. [Laughter]

[Mr. Green explained that he and the other eight students faced 2,000 
white students and that fighting was not an option. He advocated 
nonviolence as a real and effective tool for resolving conflicts.]

    The President. I want to make two points about it. First is, back 
then, the law was our friend and lawlessness was our enemy. In other 
words, the Supreme Court was the friend of integration. The President 
was enforcing the Supreme Court order. And after President Kennedy was 
elected, Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General. He was out there 
killing himself trying to get the schools integrated and enforce the 
law. So the law was seen as the friend of the people who wanted change.
    The second point I'd like to make is, people were willing to put 
themselves on the line, these

[[Page 940]]

people like Ernie. Mr. Marshall's father worked for years and years and 
years. They were willing to pay the price of time. What you have today 
in a lot of communities is young people taking the law into their own 
hands either because they can't manage their own aggressions and they've 
got a gun handy, or because they're doing it for some--because it arises 
out of drug dealing or something like that, where people want a quick 
benefit instead of a long-term benefit.
    And I think one of the things the schools have to drum into our kids 
today is that you always have to be living for your lifetime. You always 
have to be thinking about what it's going to be like down the road. No 
one is entitled to instant gratification all the time, to get what they 
want when they want it, right now. You have to be willing to pay the 
price of time.
    And these nine young people of whom Ernie was the leader were 
willing--they paid an enormous price for themselves as well as for 
everybody they represented by saying, ``In my life this will be 
better.'' And if I could change one thing about what's going on today, 
when there's so much mindless violence among young people and kids are 
just getting shot at random, it's because people are going around acting 
on their impulses in the moment.
    And the law can still be your friend if you're willing to work and 
have discipline and take time with it. Nobody gets everything they want 
just when they want it. You have to pay the price of time and be willing 
to take the kind of disciplined risks that Ernie Green did. And that, I 
think, is one of the things we really have got to somehow hammer home to 
everybody in your generation.
    You've been great. The teacher's telling me it's time to stop. The 
principal is. Thank you all very much. You were terrific. Thank you, 
gentlemen.

[At this point, the President was presented with several gifts.]

    The President. The great thing about the United States is that all 
the history of our country lives in the present and helps to pave the 
way for the future.
    I had Senator Byrd in my office last night, who is the chairman of 
the Senate Appropriations Committee. They have to approve all the money 
that gets spent, like if we send any money to your school, it comes 
through that committee. And he had just finished reading ``The 
Federalist Papers'' written by Madison and Hamilton, just read them all 
again, because he said they have relevance to today.
    Brown is important today. It's living in your life today. And what 
you have to do is to make the most of this experience and make the most 
of your own life, so that 40 years from now young people will be sitting 
in this school and other schools around the country, and they will be 
living the accumulated history of America.
    That's the only way this works. That's the brilliant thing about our 
country. That's why we wanted to come here and talk about it, because we 
know the spirit and the meaning of that decision is alive in your lives 
today. And as long as you believe that and you do your part, then this 
country is going to be around a long, long time.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. at Martin Luther King, Jr., 
Middle School.