A Supreme Court Conversation While we await today's school
segregation decisions, I'll answer your earlier question about
the impact of Brown v. Board of Education. Both sides in the
debate over whether to use race to maintain integrated schools
invoke and rely upon Brown to support their position. Supporters
of the Lousiville and Seattle plans believe that the promise of
Brown was to use the schools to bring the races together to help
move the country from a segregated society toward one America.
Those challenging the plans believe the fact that some requests
for school assignment are denied because of the race of the
pupil violates Brown's condemnation of racial classifications.
So, what was Brown all about? It is difficult to convey to
someone who wasn't living in the South the magnitude of the
Brown decision. On the 40th anniversary of the decision, I
revisited that day for the Washington Post: I REMEMBER nothing
of my 13th birthday, which was celebrated in some now
unrecallable fashion on a May Saturday