Narrative In my Rhetoric 105 class that I am required to take a freshman at the University, we spent the entire semester relating our class work to the ruling of Brown vs. Board. Our main focus was on an author by the name of James Baldwin, a prominent black writer during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. As a requirement for the course we had to attend a campus event related to Brown vs. Board. There were many events all over campus as a result of the campus celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ruling. My choice was to attend a speech given by a man named Julian Bond entitled “The Broken Promise of Brown.” Having never heard of this man, I took the recommendation of my teacher and attended with my notebook in hand. As I walked to Smith Memorial Hall located on the southeast corner of the Quad, I had no idea what to expect. My initial thoughts saw me as being the only white person in attendance and being surrounded by mostly black people. As I entered the doors of the building I heard a lot of talking and socializing coming from upstairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a sign indicating that there was a “by invitation only” reception upstairs. On my way into the auditorium I learned that Mr. Bond was not just a randomly chosen speaker but was instead the chairman of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. Since the auditorium was hardly filled and still believing that there was going to be a dominantly African-American crowd I came to the conclusion that the people upstairs must all be of African descent. After all, the major supporters of the NAACP are not white people. Inside the auditorium were mostly white people. Many of them were older and accompanied by what appeared to be a significant other. About 10 minutes prior to the beginning of the speech, the people from upstairs began to stream into the auditorium and much to my surprise the crowd coming in was dominantly white. Almost everyone came in with another person. Some came in groups, some with a significant other and others with just a single friend. After the auditorium was filled, by my estimation it was 65-75% white. This was the opposite of what my initial thoughts were. In my opinion, I thought the speech would relate more to the black population and thus the crowd balance would reflect that.
...isely. This book has been extremely influential in the world of academia and the thinking on the subject of segregation and race relations in both the North and the South, but more importantly, it has influenced race relations in practice since it was first published. However, Woodward’s work is not all perfect. Although he does present his case thoroughly, he fails to mention the Negroes specifically as often as he might have. He more often relies on actions taken by whites as his main body of evidence, often totally leaving out the actions that may have been taken by the black community as a reaction to the whites’ segregationist policies.
Last summer, my then twelve year old son was asked to participate in the National Junior Leaders Conference in Washington, DC. So, I packed our stuff and we headed for our nation's capital. While there, we visited the Supreme Court and my son, never having been there before, was simply awed. A short time later, we went to the Library of Congress. At the time (I don't know whether or not it's still there), there was a display -- three or four rooms big dedicated to the Supreme Court case Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. While the case was something that Nicholas (my son) and I had talked about on a few occasions, it was interesting to watch him as he navigated through the rooms that had photographs, court documents, newspaper articles, and other memorabilia of the case and the people involved with it. About thirty minutes into our time there, he started to cry softly, but he continued making his way through the display. He went to every single display in those several rooms; he didn't want to leave until he had seen everything and read everything. When we finally left (almost four hours after we arrived), he said to me, "It's disgraceful the way our country treated black people; there was no honor in any of it."
Walking into a lecture hall in Gregory Hall, I really didn’t know what to expect. I dressed as I would any other day; an Abercrombie shirt, a pair of frayed shorts and some casual sandals. I sat towards the front of the room and arrived slightly early to ensure a good seat. The name of this Brown v. Board education discussion was entitled, "Rethinking Slavery: 1800-1861,” and was arranged by the Mellon initiative.
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
“Simple Justice” was written by Richard Kluger and reviews the history of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation, and African America’s century-long struggle for equality under law. It began with the inequities of slavery to freedom bells to the forcing of integration in schools and the roots of laws with affect on African Americans. This story reveals the hate caused the disparagement of African Americans in America over three hundred years. I learned how African Americans were ultimately acknowledged by their simple justice. The American version of the holocaust was presented in the story. In 1954 the different between how segregation and slavery were not in fashion when compared with dishonesty of how educating African American are separate from Caucasian was justified by the various branches of government.
The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the circumstances were clearly not separate but equal. Brown v. Board of Education brought this out, this case was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.
"Histories, like ancient ruins, are the fictions of empires. While everything forgotten hands in dark dreams of the past, ever threatening to return...”, a quote from the movie Velvet Goldmine, expresses the thoughts that many supporters of integration may have felt because no one truly knew the effects that one major verdict could create. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a very important watershed during the Civil Rights Movement. However, like most progressive decisions, it did not create an effective solution because no time limit was ever given. James Baldwin realized that this major oversight would lead to a “broken promise.”
On the seventeenth day in May 1954 a decision was made which changed things in the United States dramatically. For millions of black Americans, news of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education meant, at last, that they and their children no longer had to attend separate schools. Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court ruling that changed the life of every American forever.
“Separate is not equal.” In the case of Plessey vs. Ferguson in 1896 the U.S. Supreme Court said racial segregation didn’t violate the Constitution, so racial segregation became legal. In 1954 the case of Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka this case proved that separate is not equal. Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka was revolutionary to the education system, because colored people and Caucasians had segregated schools. The Caucasians received a better education and the colored people argued that they were separate but not equal. This would pave the way for integrated schools and change the education system as we knew it.
From slavery being legal, to its abolishment and the Civil Rights Movement, to where we are now in today’s integrated society, it would seem only obvious that this country has made big steps in the adoption of African Americans into American society. However, writers W.E.B. Du Bois and James Baldwin who have lived and documented in between this timeline of events bringing different perspectives to the surface. Du Bois first introduced an idea that Baldwin would later expand, but both authors’ works provide insight to the underlying problem: even though the law has made African Americans equal, the people still have not.
Langston Hughes wrote a poem, in 1951, called “Harlem”. It sums up the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore- and the run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?” Lorraine Hansberry uses this poem to open A Raisin in the Sun. This dialogue suggests what happens to the African American’s dream during the Brown v. Board of Education trials. While critiquing this play I was a little disappointed that Brown v. Board of Education was not discussed directly. However, I did find the plot of the play, and the people who were attending it to be very interesting.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, racial injustice was very prominent and even wildly accepted in the South. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois were two of the most renowned “pioneers in the [search] for African-American equality in America” (Washington, DuBois, and the Black Future). Washington was “born a slave” who highly believed in the concept of “separate but equal,” meaning that “we can be as [distant] as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress” (Washington 1042). DuBois was a victim of many “racial problems before his years as a student” and disagreed with Washington’s point of view, which led
I reside here in the United States of America. Currently, I am in Montgomery, Alabama, at a predominately white institute. I sit in a room full of white faces. I find myself intrigued, yet out of place as on the first day, my teacher transforms what I thought to be a typical literature class into a discussion of black women’s rights. I look around observing my peers’ faces as I begin to feel uneasy as the professors indulges into the lecture. I question myself as to why do I feel uncomfortable, as if my professor has revealed secret, government information. Why is it that being taught of black significance seem to compel an uproar within me, yet all of my life I have learned of astonishing white individuals while black excellence was only to be explored within the shortest month of the year? I find it so peculiar how my politics of location has caused me to be reluctant of speaking of black history or anything black in the presence of non-colored individuals.
Although Baldwin’s letter was addressed to his nephew, he intended for society as a whole to be affected by it. “This innocent country set you down in a getto in which, in fact, it intended that you should parish”(Baldwin 244). This is an innocent country, innocent only because they know not what they do. They discriminate the African American by expecting them to be worthless, by not giving them a chance to prove their credibility. Today African Americans are considered to be disesteemed in society. They are placed in this class before they are even born just like Royalty obtains their class before they are even conceived. We may think that this is a paradox but when d...