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Title: Brown V. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy by James T. Patterson ISBN: 0-19-515632-3 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Desegregation and Brown v. Board - worth the read
Comment: This is really a must read book for anyone interested in the issues surround desegregation and the efforts by Thurgood Marshall and others to end such practices in America's schools. It also is a very vivid reminder that courts and lawsuits can only go so far, and in the end it is people and their institutions that must be changed as well. Did Brown achieve all that it was hoped that it would - the author argues that it didn't, but that it did lay the foundation for tremendous change in racial relations during the last century. The author also helps to place the decision of Brown in context with other legal and political events that help the reader understand what was the source of resistence in various parts of the US to school desegregation and subsequent busing endeavors. Well worth reading and keeping on your shelves.
Rating: 4
Summary: America's Second Revolution
Comment: Patterson succeeds in writing a very different book than Kruger's unequaled "Simple Justice." While Simple Justice told the story of how Brown v. Board of Education came to be, Paterson asks whether Brown should have been.
After giving a brief history of Brown (covering, in summary fashion, much of the ground covered by Kruger), Patterson examines the aftermath of Brown. The question Patterson addresses throughout the book is whether Brown marked a step forward in civil rights.
Patterson successfully debunks the argument that Brown was a step backwards. As he says, anyone who thinks that the country was better off before Brown had better buy a two way ticket if he wants to go back in time, because he will want to turn right around and come back. Before Brown, most black children were educated in tarpaper shacks, by grossly underpaid teachers, with no supplies, and even less respect.
Did Brown solve all problems? Of course not. As Patterson notes, what Brown does do is prove that there are limits to the power of the courts to accomplish social change. However, the Supreme Court did set an unequivocal moral tone, which set the stage for the civil rights movement, which (building on the constitutional foundation built by Brown) changed the world we all live in.
Has racism ended? No. But no one should expect any Supreme Court decision (or even a series of decisions spanning less than 25 years) to undo the racial history of this country which had taken 400 years to build. The real shame is that beginning in the late 70's, the courts, Congress, and the President have all worked to reverse the moral tone set in Brown. Unfortunately, they have succeeded all too well. But one can not fairly blame that on the Supreme Court's decision in Brown.
A thought provoking book which should be read by anyone who is interested in the history of race relations in the second half of the 20th Century.
Rating: 3
Summary: More Is Needed
Comment: Much more needs to be written about the Brown v. Board of Education era. Patterson indeed does a good service of describing the "trouble legacy" of Brown. For while school integregation and the end to seperate but equal laws were a major revolution of sorts in this country, Brown left unresolved significant questions and problems concerning the education of African descended students and other minorities. For example, while Brown focused on legal and structural changes in public education, which led to the desegregation of schools, it did not address issues of integrating school curriculum and preparing teachers and school officials for a multicultural transformation of schooling. It simply assumed that the solution to racism in this society was to provide a way for Blacks to assimilate in the larger White society instead of empowering themselves to respect and build their own culture and institutions. While Patterson deals with the legal aspects Brown, he too avoids or overlooks the pedagogical and cultural issues that went unaddressed in Brown. Thus, Patterson's work doesn't add significantly anything new to the history of Brown that is not dealt with in J. Harvie Wilkson's From Brown to Bakke or Kluger's Simple Justice.
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Title: Simple Justice by RICHARD KLUGER ISBN: 0394722558 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 January, 1977 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: What Brown V. Board of Education Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Landmark Civil Rights Decision by Jack M. Balkin ISBN: 081479890X Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision by Peter H. Irons ISBN: 0670889180 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 12 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Brown V. Board of Education: A Brief History With Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture) by Waldo E. Martin, St Martins Press ISBN: 0312111525 Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $16.35 |
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Title: Dismantling Desegregation: The Quiet Reversal of Brown V. Board of Education by Gary Orfield, Susan E. Eaton, Elaine R. Jones ISBN: 1565844017 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: September, 1997 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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