REGARDING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION DECISION
MAY 17, 2004Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, 50 years ago on a Monday in May, the Supreme Court revealed the soul of our Constitution when it said, "..... in the field of education, separate but equal has no place." It was a moral decision just as much as it was a legal decision that ended discrimination in every place across America.
Some of you remember that day. I was just born and can only imagine what it was like to experience that moment of truth. To hear those words "has no place" To see those headlines, "Supreme Court bans ....." To feel the advance of justice. It was a glorious day in America and for all those families, children, teachers, and heroes of the last two centuries who risked their lives to move America to that moment.
All of that effort and success and history was wrapped in the family name, Brown. But we can never forget that there were other families involved in that case.
One of these cases began in my birth state of South Carolina. The African-American kids had to walk up to nine miles each way between their homes and their only school in Summerton. The white kids had 30 school buses to take them back and forth to their schools. The African American parents went to the Clarendon County School Board with a simple request--one school bus.
The school board said no. So J.A. De Laine, a minister, convinced a humble farmer named Levi Pearson to sue the Clarendon County school district for buses. That case was Briggs v. Elliott and became one of the five cases from around the country that were consolidated and eventually became known as Brown v. Board of Education.
The long journey from the back roads of South Carolina to the chambers of the Supreme Court was mapped out and led by attorney Charles Hamilton Houston. Together with his protégé Thurgood Marshall, Charlie Houston patiently, painstakingly and brilliantly used the Constitution to correct itself and end legal segregation forever.
And the other cases were from Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The other names were Belton, Davis, and Bolling. And in Topeka, there were 12 other families involved, nearly 200 total. This wasn't one case and one person and one school, but the cause of millions, and ultimately a cause for all of America.
You and I know that this country has made progress. The “White Only Signs” have come down. Thurgood Marshall went on to serve on the Supreme Court. We have Congressman and women and Senators who have taken their place in our national leadership. And we have doctors and lawyers and storeowners in every neighborhood and in any town.
We have come far, but we're not there yet.
I grew up in an America that was growing up too with this landmark decision. This is something I've lived with my entire life living in the South in the '50s and '60s.
We all have a responsibility when it comes to issues of race and equality and civil rights, but as a Southerner, I feel an especially enormous responsibility to lead on this issue. We Southerners have this special responsibility, not only because we know America's tragic and painful history on race, but also because we have led the way in breaking free from that history.
From the time I was very young, I saw up close the ugly face of segregation and discrimination. I saw young African-American kids shuttled upstairs in movie theaters. I saw white only signs on restaurant doors and luncheon counters. When I was in the sixth grade, my teacher walked into the classroom and said he wouldn't teach in an integrated school.
But even in the struggle's darkest days, countless Southerners stood as profiles in courage. For every George Wallace, we had a Terry Sanford. There were four Southern Justices on the Court that decided Brown. And it was Lyndon Johnson, a Texan, who told a joint session of Congress in 1965, "We SHALL overcome!"
I have heard some of these pundits and politicians on television debate where and when in America we can talk about this issue. They think it is fine to stop and pat ourselves on the back on special days like today or Martin Luther King Day or during Black History Month. But they don't think we should talk about race and equality and civil rights any other time. But we need to talk about this everyday and everywhere.
Why? Because this is not an African-American issue. This is not a Hispanic-American issue or an Asian-American issue. This is an American issue. It is about who we are. What our values are. What kind of country we want to live in. What kind of country we want our children and grandchildren to live in.
We have come far, but we are not there yet.
We need leaders who not only talk the talk of civil rights and equality, but are willing to DO something about it. We need leaders who understand that 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education we still have two public school systems in America: one for students who live in affluent communities and another for students who don't. There are still students in our rural areas and in our cities who try to learn in a crowded trailer, learn to read under a crumbling ceiling, and try to study science with equipment that ought to be seen only in their history books.
Yes, there are signs of hope. In my own State, for example, schools in Charlotte and Durham and elsewhere are raising test scores while also closing the achievement gap.
But the truth is that while our best public schools are among the best in the world--the state of many of our schools remains the shame of our Nation.
Education has made all the difference in my life. I was the first member of my family to go to college. But millions of our children are being denied the opportunities I had.
Poor and minority students come to school with greater challenges, and our education system then turns around and gives them less of everything that matters. We spend less in their classrooms. We give them fewer qualified teachers. And we teach them a weaker curriculum. One Washington, DC, high school enrolls three times more students in “office reprographics”--training on photocopiers--than in pre-calculus and calculus combined.
Millions of our young people drop out, turning their backs on their futures. Minority students have only a 50-50 chance of finishing high school.
Those who do make it to their senior year are four years behind their peers in reading and math. That's right--minority seniors test at the same level as white eighth-graders.
And just last week, a judge in Topeka, KS, of all places, ordered the public schools shut down because the funding was so inequitable that it utterly failed to serve the needs of poor, minority, disabled and non-English speaking children.
In his opinion, Judge Bullock quoted directly from Brown: "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. ..... 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, where the State has undertaken to provide it, must be made available to all on equal terms."
We have come far, but we are not there yet.
Fifty years later, we are still fighting that fight. But thank God we have some courageous judges who uphold our civil rights laws and ensure equal justice for all. We have to continue to fight for judges who will enforce our civil rights laws and stand up for equality in America. We have so much work to do with economic equality and educational equality. That takes leadership, not slogans and photo ops.
The administration can talk about "No Child Left Behind" all they want. It is great rhetoric.
But the reality is that children are being left behind all over the country. They sit in the back of the classroom, wishing they could do better, but no one hears them, no one sees them. They walk the halls and go unnoticed because our schools are so crowded now that no one knows their names. They try their best, but drop out of high school--they give up on their education because the education system has given up on them.
None of us would tolerate that for our own children. Well, these ARE our children. Every single one of them. Their failure is our failure. And their success is our success. We've got to do better by them. Yes we must have high expectations of them. But as David Broder noted in a recent column, we also have to provide the resources they need to meet those standards.
And that takes real leadership not rhetoric. Real leadership is courage, and commitment, and action. It means doing everything we can to make equality a reality--not only in our laws, but in our lives, in communities where poverty and discrimination remain a scar on our Nation.
More than anything, leadership means recognizing that social justice is not a zero-sum game where "we" give something to "them"--whether it's women or minorities or immigrants. The Brown decision was not about some "them." It was about "us." All of us.
We have come so far, but we are not there yet.
I believe that the best way to mark the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision is to push onward with all of the strength and determination we can muster to ensure that the promise of Brown is finally realized. It is time to honor those heroes who would not quit, who would not settle for anything less than the right book to read, a school bus to ride on, and a great teacher to guide them.
In moving forward, we honor the Little Rock Nine who walked passed angry mobs, and inspired the Nation with their grace. We honor James Meredith, who persevered despite the full weight of Mississippi demanding that he stay home. We honor little Ruby Bridges, who needed U.S. Marshals to protect her from the wall of human hate that stood between her and her new school--a scene so compelling that Norman Rockwell used it as the basis for his painting, "The Problem We All Live With" that I have hanging in one of my Senate offices. And all of the families who joined the NAACP to take down Plessy vs. Ferguson once and for all.
When those walls were raised; when all the doors and gates were locked, the African American community found its own gateway to a good education. Despite all of the odds, despite those in power who said, "You can't have this chance," ordinary people stood together tall and strong and said, "Yes we can!"
These moments of history shadow us today. These heroes are looking right over our shoulders. They are urging us to move forward. They are telling us, "we've brought you this far, but you're not there yet."
Our journey to one America is the greatest mission of our history. Our work, our effort, our commitment must be constant. I know mine is. Together, from the heights of national power to every local Head Start center, we must strive to open doors, to make sure that there's always a seat at the table, and the voices of all Americans will be heard.
I believe that wherever you live, whoever your family is, and whatever the color of your skin is, if you are willing to work hard, you ought to be able to go as far as your God-given talents and hard work will take you. We believe in bringing people together. What we believe, what I believe, is that the family you are born into and the color of your skin will never control what you are able to do or how far you can go in this, our America.
That is the America we should all believe in. That is the promise of the Brown decision. And that is the America we can create, not just for a precious few, but for everyone.
We have come far and we are not done, but I do believe that we WILL get there yet.
http://www.congress.gov/cgi-lis/query/D?r108:1:./temp/~r108hUUwop ::
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