Decision in Brown vs Board of Education Changed our Nation

In a rare unanimous decision, 64 years ago last Thursday, the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in this landmark civil rights case. A young black girl, Linda Brown, sued the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, because her local elementary refused to let her attend. They told her to go to an inferior black school that was miles farther away from her home.

The same Court had ruled in 1896 ruled in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” accommodations in railroad cars met the 14th Amendment’s requirement for equal protection under the law. Local and state governments used the ruling to justify segregation across the board - including schools.

Sometimes courts admit that they were wrong. In this case, Thurgood Marshall (who later became the first black Supreme Court justice) argued successfully that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional in this case. The court agreed, but went further. It said that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional in any place and in any circumstance.

Part of the problem was that "separate" hardly ever translated to "equal." Black children attended inferior schools with less funding than white schools, less pay for teachers, and hand-me-down desks and equipment. Where blacks were not allowed to use "whites-only" public restrooms, their "equal" accommodations often meant an outhouse out in the back of the building.

Linda was allowed to attend the white school. But it took another Supreme Court decision a year later to mandate the integration of all public schools across the nation.

Not surprisingly, the Democrat Party fought integration viciously, at the local, state and federal levels. This may surprise people who have heard the Democrat's propaganda so many times that they believe Democrats have always been the champions of civil rights.

Please check it out. Search Southern Democrats on Wikipedia. Search Democrats-Voting Rights, Democrats-Slavery, Democrats-Jim Crow, Democrats-Segregation. Of course, you will find some articles defending the Democrat record, but if you look at the historical articles rather than the partisan ones, you will find the following:

1) The Republican Party was established in the 1850's specifically to end slavery.

2) In the 1850's the Democrats publicly supported slavery.

3) The Democrats kept the Jim Crow segregationist laws in force for over 100 years.

4) Almost all Ku Klux Klan members were Democrats. The longest-serving Democrat in Congress, Robert Byrd, was a former Klan Exalted Cyclops - and the President ProTempore of the Senate.

5) When Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964, most Democrats opposed it.

6) A higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 than Democrats, with 61 Democrats voting against it, and only 24 Republicans opposing it.

7) When Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sent troops to integrate the schools in Little Rock, AR, Democrats threatened violence to stop the black children from entering.

Today the racism of the Democrat Party is far less open. There's the subtle bigotry of racial quotas. They assume that Blacks can't get into good colleges based on their own educational achievements, so they require the colleges to admit a certain number.

Then there's the new slavery - the welfare system. Study it for yourself. The system is rigged to keep blacks locked into the system because the Democrat bigots believe they can't make it on their own. As a result, we now have third and fourth generation welfare recipients. Of course, the welfare system also ensures that blacks will vote Democrat since the Democrats promote welfare and oppose measures that will help people get out of the system.

The new racism of the Democrats is that of low expectations of blacks. I have seen articles and speeches by black people who hate this kind of bigotry. To assume that because of the color of their skin certain people need to be protected and promoted by the government is to say they can't make it on their own. That's the worst kind of insult to both their intellect and their motivation.