KU to commemorate 1954 landmark school desegregation case

Tony Brown

National civil rights leaders, educators, lawyers and journalists, along with descendants of the 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education case, will gather at KU this month to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the decision that declared segregation of public schools unconstitutional.

A four-day event, "Legacies and the Unfinished Business of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka-Law, Education, Public Policy and the Media," opens Sunday, March 14, with an address by Tony Brown of "Tony Brown's Journal," the longest-running program on PBS.

Deborah Dandridge

"We want today's generation to hear the stories of those whose families led the way with the case that revolutionized race relations, extended the protection of equal rights to all U.S. citizens and inspired oppressed peoples around the world," said Deborah Dandridge, '94, KU archivist, conference chair and a member of a national commission created by Congress to commemorate the 50h anniversary.

About 300 KU students are studying the case this semester through an interdisciplinary class examining the origins and impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision. Norman Yetman, KU Chancellors Club teaching professor of American studies and sociology, is teaching the upper-level course.

Lani Guinier

Yetman is encouraging his students to attend the conference and explore issues discussed in class with the special guests, including Cheryl Brown Henderson of Topeka, daughter of Oliver Brown, the plaintiff for whom the case was named.

In addition to understanding the background for the court case that challenged America's self-image as a beacon of democracy and equality, Yetman says he hopes the class increases awareness of the realities of our increasingly diverse, multicultural society.

His students learn the Brown decision didn't result in integration of the schools, that additional court cases were needed to implement integration and that in the past 20 years schools have become more, not less, racially segregated.

Julianne Malveaux

In addition to being the concluding event in a series of national public programs on the historic decision, the conference will offer a unique opportunity for many of the descendants of the 1954 case to gather and speak publicly. On Monday, March 15, the conference will feature Lani Guinier, Harvard Law School professor, and Walter Broadnax, Clark Atlanta University president. Descendants of the plaintiffs also will speak.

Those descendants include Joseph A. DeLaine, Briggs v. Elliott in South Carolina; Cheryl Brown Henderson, Zelma Henderson, Leola Montgomery, Vicki Lawton Benson and Harriet Wilson, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education in Kansas; and John Stokes and Edwilda Allen Isaac, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County in Virginia.

Registration information is available online at www.kuce.org/programs/bbec/overview.html or by calling KU Continuing Education registrations toll free at (877) 404-KUCE (5823).

More national speakers will include:

• Julianne Malveaux, economist and author

• Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University

• Mary Dudziak, professor in the University of Southern California School of Law

• John Jackson, director of education for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

• Ted Shaw, associate director and counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund

• Karen Bates, correspondent with National Public Radio

• Kevin Fox Gotham, professor at Tulane University

• Norma Cantu, former regional counsel and education director of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and currently professor at the University of Texas

• William Guillermo Luna, curator of the Museum of Mexican Culture and History in Chicago and co-founder of the Mexican American Veterans Association.

Links:
Conference Web site
http://www.kuce.org/programs/bbec/

News releases
http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/04N/FebNews/Feb27/brown.html
http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/03N/DecNews/Dec11/dandridge.html

Brown Anniversary Commission
http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/brownvboard50th/index.html