Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Edcuation and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform

Eminent law professor Bell (And We Are Not Saved, etc.), who helped litigate school desegregation cases after the momentous 1954 Brown decision, initially believed that racial justice would ensue, but he has long had second thoughts. Brown, he contends, is a ""magnificent mirage,"" the Supreme Court's order of ""all deliberate speed"" a willingness to sacrifice black rights to white resistance, not to mention its decades-later unwillingness to acknowledge metropolitan housing patterns and extend desegregation to the suburbs. Noting, among other things, the importance of Brown as a gesture to the decolonizing world, Bell considers it akin to the Emancipation Proclamation, another decision in which blacks obtained relief only when it served the best interests of the country. He posits an alternative Brown decision, one that acknowledges that segregation afflicts whites as well as blacks and that orders immediate equity of resources and representation; this enforcement of the Supreme Court's infamous ""separate but equal"" doctrine, Bell believes, would have inevitably eroded separation. He acknowledges that desegregation has increased the achievement of black students, but economic and housing barriers have increasingly limited such opportunities. Similarly, the controversy over affirmative action obscures economic issues-such as budget cuts-that pose even greater barriers to minorities seeking higher education. Given the endurance of racism, Bell suggests multiple, pragmatic tactics to resist oppression, rather than the ""romantic love of integration"" or even the ""long-sought goal of equality under law."" Bell's wide-ranging provocations effectively challenge those who still consider Brown the ""Holy Grail of racial justice."" Author tour. (Apr.)