Two schools at center of battle for equality
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Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legal racial segregation in American public schools.
The school at the center of that decision, Topeka’s Monroe Elementary School, is now a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service. Another pivotal school in the history of desegregation, Central High in Little Rock, Ark., is also a National Historic Site.
I visited both schools during the winter and explored a lot of uncomfortable American history as I was transported back to a time, not so long ago, when racial equality was not taken for granted.
Monroe Elementary was one of four segregated black schools in Topeka in 1951, when Linda Brown and her father, Oliver, joined a suit challenging segregation.
The Kansas case that lent its name to the decision was actually just one of five that the Supreme Court consolidated under the title of Brown v. Board of Education.
Historians believe that the Supreme Court justices may have chosen Brown as the focus of the decision precisely because Topeka is not in the South and didn’t have the same level of racial tensions and hostilities.
Topeka’s schools were segregated only through grade school; children in upper grades went to neighborhood schools regardless of race.
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Black children in the city may well have received the elusive “separate but equal” accommodations endorsed in the 1896 Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. The school district didn’t stint on funds or teachers for black schools.
But the new ruling found that even an “equal” education was unconstitutional if offered in segregated schools.
Monroe School, built in 1927, was a modern two-story Italian renaissance-style building that was considered an architectural gem. The school took advantage
For information about the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, call 785-354-4273 or visit www.nps.gov/brvb.
For information about the Little Rock Central National Historic Site, call 501-374-1957 or visit www.nps.gov/chsc. of natural light and offered bright, airy classrooms; fireproof stairways; a large, wellequipped auditorium and gym, a separate kindergarten area with its own entrance; and special child-sized drinking fountains and restroom facilities.
Today, the school looks much as it would have in 1954.
A multiscreen video about the history of racism, Race and the American Creed, can be viewed in the auditorium.
Several of the former classrooms contain exhibits detailing the history and legacy of the Brown case, segregation in America and why the standard of “separate but equal,” even if met, was still a grave injustice and a stain on the nation’s honor.
Central High School in Little Rock was another architectural gem built in 1927. The school was named the most beautiful high school in America by the American Institute of Architects — but was closed to black students who instead attended nearby Dunbar High School (named after the black Dayton poet Paul Laurence Dunbar).
Although schools in Kansas were integrated relatively quietly — the Supreme Court ruling was actually praised by the president of the Topeka Board of Education — that wasn’t the case in Arkansas.
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus called out the state’s National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High in 1957. Events played out on national television as mobs threatened the students and attacked journalists.
President Dwight Eisenhower finally called out federal troops to escort the “Little Rock Nine” in and out of the school.
In 1999, the nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest U.S. civilian honor.
Today the huge art deco and gothic revival-style building still serves as a high school for more than 2,000 public school students of all races.
Public tours of the school are occasionally offered, but a National Park Service visitors center less than a block away hosts the site’s educational and historic exhibits, which include TV news footage of the riots, interviews with the “Little Rock Nine” and reminiscences of other Little Rock residents.