by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Charlene Taylor Hill wondered out loud why she had been asked to explain the reasons for commemorating the most noted desegregation order of all time.
“One simple answer,” she told her audience, “is, ‘Why not?’ ”
A follow-up answer puts the question in perspective, added Hill, executive director of the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission.
“You would not ask that question about Groundhog Day,” she suggested. “Or why we pause every Fourth of July and celebrate Independence Day.
“Independence Day set the stage for the rights and privileges we profess to share in these United States.”
Hill was the opening speaker at Friday’s observance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which was announced 50 years ago today. The program, “Local Perspective on the Brown Decision,” was held at the Osborn Center.
The program’s subtext was “From Segregation To Integration and Inclusion.”
Dr. Wendell P. Holmes, former chair of the Duval County School Board, was the moderator for the “From Segregation” panel discussion.
Moderator for the “To Integration” panel was Earl Johnson Jr. of the Johnson & Chauhan Law Group.
Dr. James B. Crooks, author and retired history professor from the University of North Florida, moderated the “And Inclusion” portion.
At its most basic level, the Brown decision — which was delivered in two parts — reversed what had been the “separate but equal” law of the land established by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.
The first part established that the concept of “separate but equal” in education was inherently unequal, “therefore the schools needed to change their practices,” Hill said.
Realizing that the nation, “and the South, particularly, would not respond well to Brown,” she said, the Court issued Brown II nine months later. That order dealt with implementation, which the Court said should be accomplished “with all deliberate speed.”
The requirement became “sort of a joke in some communities,” said Hill.
“All deliberate speed” meant 40 years in some areas. Schools in Topeka, Kan., itself weren’t fully integrated for 32 years.
“Many schools closed,” she said. “They gave vouchers to white parents to educate their students. The black students were left with nothing.”
Storytelling is an important element of black heritage, said Hill, “so we don’t repeat the same mistakes. So I say ‘vouchers’ one more time.”
Brown is also celebrated for the changes that followed in its wake: the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968. The federal legislation prohibited discrimination in employment in federal funding housing programs and public areas of accommodations on buses, trains, restaurants, hotels and housing in general.
Looking back over the political and social landscape of the past 50 years, Hill asked, not quite rhetorically, “Does Brown work? Is the dream of Brown and its vision years ago a reality today?
“If it’s not a reality, what do we need to do to make that happen? Lives were lost, battles were fought, lives were changed, all because a decision was made to stand for equality and to do away with the concept of separate but equal.”
On some levels, in some instances, Hill said, Brown worked the way it was supposed to.
“But in other ways,” she added, “I think the jury is still out.
“There are true benefits to having mixed classrooms because of the cultural experience. But there’s a human part of that that people just can’t get past. What you find is a resegregation of the schools occurring. You find that the numbers are worse now than they were 30 years ago.
“That’s why we have to understand the history. People offend me when they ask, ‘Why are you doing this? What do you mean ‘why’? Because if we don’t understand what happened, we’re going to go right back there.”