Black, White and Brown:
As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to desegregate public schools, the lawyer that won the case and later made history as its first African American justice might find little to celebrate in the classrooms of his old Baltimore high school.
Thurgood Marshall’s victory in Brown v. Board of Education was a crowning achievement for this Frederick Douglas High School graduate, but achievement at the school has dwindled in the fifty years that followed. According to test scores released by the Maryland Department of Education, less than eight percent of tenth graders at Justice Marshall’s alma mater attained minimal proficiency in reading and the school is one of 62 that are slated for state "restructuring."
Even the few students who are able to read the Brown decision may wonder whether it had any real impact in eliminating what Chief Justice Earl Warren described as "separate" and "inherently unequal" schools. Of the 1,312 students at Frederick Douglas, all but seven are black. Rather than make college plans, nearly half of all city students fail to graduate and those that do may never catch up to those taking classes in wealthier suburban schools just across the county line.
This is hardly what Thurgood Marshall envisioned as a 45-year old civil rights lawyer fighting for equal educational opportunities for children of all races. Though he won the legal battle unanimously on May 17, 1954, a half-century of experience in Baltimore City and other urban school districts has taught us that it takes more than the votes of nine Supreme Court justices to eliminate segregation and inequality in our society.
Despite 50 years of "integration," we have returned to school systems which are separate and far from equal. In Baltimore City and in many other school districts, the flight of middle class families to the suburbs has left urban schools with an anemic tax base and strapped resources to handle the special needs of impoverished children. Facing the challenges of poverty, these students are left to languish in classrooms which appear to be as racially segregated as they were a half-century ago.
Sadly, the concept of "separate, but equal" schools is no longer a relic of the past. It has become a goal for the future. Today, cities battle to maintain the autonomy of their school districts while fighting for educational opportunities that would place their students on a par with those in richer, whiter suburbs. The new educational goal in the new millennium: Separate, but equal, schools.
Ironically, in striving for "equality" within urban school districts that are segregated by city borders, we are only serving to perpetuate the "inherently unequal" system that the Supreme Court tried to eliminate in Brown. As Chief Justice Warren observed, a diverse student body "is a principle 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." Unless we break down the borders that divide our students, Warren believed it "doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life."
This is certainly true for students at two Maryland schools sharing the name of the nation’s greatest champion of educational rights: "Thurgood Marshall Middle School," in Baltimore City and in Prince George’s County, are both slated for state "restructuring."