Brown v. Board of Education

In: Dissent: a journal devoted to radical ideas and the values of socialism and democracy, Band 51, Heft 4, S. 67-73

Abstract

Personal experience working with Roma children to integrate them into Bulgarian public schools is drawn on to consider the rough road for desegregation following Brown v. Board of Education. A comparison between US & Bulgarian desegregation indicate a far smoother & successful effort in Bulgaria than was the case following the US Supreme Court decision. The high level of community social support for the Romany families is noted, & while all is not perfect with the transition, nothing resembles the concerted reaction of the US South to Brown v. Board of Education. Attention is then given to the intense southern response, & the possibility of smoother US integration is seen to have been discouraged by state action doctrine & the capacity for the legal right to integrate in other ways would have effect true social change. Why litigation rather than politics was the route to pursue for the US civil rights movement is demonstrated before looking at how the decision spelled the end of segregation & spurred the 1960s civil rights acts & compelled the US to accept racial change. J. Zendejas