Voices of the Brown generation: description of a project.

• Date: 22 March 2004
• Author: Robinson, Mildred Wigfall
• Published date: 22 March 2004
• Author: Robinson, Mildred Wigfall

I am one of the reasons for the Brown litigation. In 1954, I was enrolled in the fourth grade in the Berkeley County Training School in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The Berkeley County Training School was the public school that educated all of the Negro children, grades one through twelve, who resided in that county.

I remember quite clearly the day that the Brown decision was handed down. (1) I recall the image of my father, the school principal, ringing a hand bell while standing on a little hill that was just outside of his office. He rang that bell daily to signal the beginning of the day's classes and the end of recess. We had been outside enjoying recess in the late spring sunshine and assumed that he was signaling its end. We quickly noticed that this was not his intent--he was beckoning us to him. We ran to him. He announced with great excitement that the Supreme Court of the United States had just held that segregated schools were unconstitutional. He explained to us that there were no longer to be separate schools for white and colored children. The decision was, of course, Brown v. Board of Education. (2) His excitement was infectious and so we children all became excited. We ran around and generally acted out that excitement. We did not, of course, understand all of the ramifications of the decision. We could not know that widespread resistance to the appropriate implementation of the decision would ultimately lead to the firing of beloved teachers, the closing of facilities so much a part of life in black communities, and the fragmentation of the support and loss of protection that those communities provided to its young. On that day, we celebrated the decision.

I don't know what my father ultimately came to think about that decision. I can tell you that as desegregation was finally implemented in the South, like so many other black administrators and teachers, he was denied the opportunity to pursue the career for which he had prepared and that he loved. (3) He was a talented teacher and administrator and was dedicated to and loved his students. In his later years, his work afforded him only tangential contact with everyday school life. I know that he deeply missed that contact.

My mother was not one of the hundreds of black administrators and teachers fired during that period. (4) In fact, she spent her entire professional life in the public schools of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, first as a teacher and in her later years as a guidance counselor. However, she, too, experienced unanticipated and unwarranted pain.

The last years (1968-1989) of her long career as a teacher (1943-1944, 1951-1989) were spent in service in the public schools of Atlanta, Georgia. In one conversation with her about this project (more on the project in just a moment), I asked her what it was like initially to be assigned to teach in a formerly all-white school in Atlanta, Georgia. (She received this assignment for the 1969-70 academic year.) She described to me one early experience. She and one of her white colleagues (who in time became a very close friend) were standing in one of the school windows early in the school day. As they stood there, they watched school buses arrive, load white children and depart to take the children to other area schools that remained overwhelmingly white. I did not then inquire into the personal impact of that unfolding scene. Like my father, my mother was and remains a talented person of tremendous decency and integrity. I can only imagine the pain of watching those children depart fully aware that she was one of the reasons for that departure.

I will explore that point with her and share more of my story in the book that will be a product of the project that my friend and University of Virginia colleague Professor Richard Bonnie and I are jointly undertaking. The book will be entitled Voices of the Brown Generation: Memories and Reflections of Law Professors. I will describe the project to you today.

I shared my memory with my colleague and friend Richard Bonnie who is white. He recalled his own experiences while growing up in Norfolk, Virginia. He, too, will share his story in our forthcoming book. We agreed that the decision and its repercussions had a profound personal effect upon each of us. (5) Our conversations led to the project in which we are presently engaged--a project that grew out of our conviction that the lives of many of our contemporaries were also affected by Brown. We wondered what others of our generation, without regard to race or gender, could or would recall and would share. We conceived this project in an attempt to discover what we could about collective memory.

We believe that it is important to share these memories, for Brown continues to play a prominent role in the debate surrounding the role and contours of American public elementary and secondary education. One aspect of the decision is uncontroversial--that is, its assessment of the importance of education in day-to-day American life. The Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education may have best captured this important sentiment in this succinct statement: "education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments." (6) Chief Justice Warren further observed that education

is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. 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. (7) An education that is adequate by all measures is more critical than ever if the individual is to function effectively in everyday life.

The overt trappings of racial segregation in public schools have disappeared: Schools are no longer racially segregated as a matter of law. Nevertheless, the debate over the further meaning of Brown continues and rages on as the nation's schools become increasingly re-segregated. Further, in many ways, even in schools that remain facially diverse, practices that undermine equality in the opportunity for an adequate education by separating students pursuant to perceived academic ability persist. These practices, many of which were extant fifty years ago and in spite of this continued pernicious effect, were not unique to de jure segregation and were as a result unaddressed.

Continuing attempts to formulate effective societal responses to current public school re-segregation with its host of related issues could, Professor Bonnie and I believe, be beneficially informed by the experiences of the Brown generation. Such an effort should seek our views and assess Brown's effect upon us, for we--those initially affected by the decision--were at the heart of the maelstrom. In the final analysis, it is undeniable that in a variety of ways--both positive and negative--the decision catalyzed a major shift in the social paradigm that, unlike the Civil War, did not (initially at least) have a violent genesis. Brown affected day-to-day life across America in a manner unlike any other domestic peacetime event.

What did those children see and feel?

In order to proceed, we first had to define a manageable group. Further, that group had to share the critical common characteristic: elementary and secondary school education in American schools during the immediate post-Brown years. (8) We ultimately settled on currently active legal academics with birth years between 1937 and 1954. We chose 1937 as the early parameter, believing that those with birth years of 1937 and after would define the group that had reached high school by 1954. We chose 1954 as the end year (candidly) because we couldn't agree on what the end year should otherwise be.

While at first blush our target group may seem implausible, as is true of the legal profession in general there have been noticeable changes in the legal academy's professorial ranks. In 1954, but for the handful of law schools at historically black institutions of higher learning, the nation's law professors were almost certainly ninety-nine percent white male. (9) By 2001-02, one-third, or about 3,000 of roughly 9,000 full-time faculty members in 185 law schools were women. Minority professors, of which there were 1138, comprised about fourteen percent of all faculty. (10) As such, we thought the target group potentially to be acceptably diverse. In addition, mid-career law professors possessed the critical common characteristic: They had all received elementary and secondary school educations in American schools during the immediate post-Brown years. Finally, we thought it likely that this group would have personal insights into just what constitutes an education that is adequate by all measures.

I think it important to note that Professor Bonnie and I did not seek to limit contributors solely to those colleagues who are constitutional law scholars. Our contributors' intellectual interests span the full spectrum of possibilities. This rich mix of scholarly interests underscores Brown's universal relevance and importance.

SURVEY DESIGN

The survey was designed to elicit pertinent information as efficiently as possible--that is, in a one-page instrument. Besides basic information--name and law school provided at the option of the responder--we asked for ethnicity, gender, date and place of birth, year of graduation from high school and grade during the 1953-54 school year. In addition, we asked for categorical responses to the following:

(1) Whether the responder specifically recalled hearing about the Brown decision when it was handed down. If so, what was recalled.

(2) What changes if any took place in the responder's school in the aftermath of the decision.

(3) Whether there were changes in specific events or practices as a result of the decision.

We also asked that the...