The Opening of Brown v. Board of Education NHS

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site Opens May 17, 2004

The opening of Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site was a celebration of community perseverance past and present. Perseverance through the struggle for education equity that continues to this day and perseverance in the efforts for that struggle to be acknowledged. While the supreme court decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a watershed moment in that first struggle, the opening of Monroe Elementary School as a National Site was a significant moment as well. It signalled to the American people that this past and present struggle was and is worthy of national recognition and national stewardship.

 

America has yet to reach the high calling of its own ideals.

—George Bush

 

On May 17th, 2004 a national spotlight was turned on Topeka, Kansas for the opening of a new National Historic Site. Due to the efforts of Cheryl Brown Henderson, the Brown Foundation, and many others across the country the park came into being on the site of Monroe Elementary, one of the five historically segregated primary schools in the city. President George W. Bush and Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry flew to Topeka to deliver inaugural addresses. Alongside Bush’s speech the 16th Street Baptist Church Choir of Birmingham, Alabama and the Thurgood Marshall Academy Choir of Harlem, NYC performed, Michelle Williams and Topeka's Williams Magnet School Choir sang also, and marches were played by the 312th U.S. Army Band of Lawrence. Local and national news outlets covered the event, which drew more than 5,000 attendees, and marked the 50th Anniversary of the supreme court case for which the site was named.

During his speech President Geroge W. Bush spoke to the historic cruelty and humiliation experienced by Africans and their descendants in the United States. In his speech he also looked back to the long fight for education equity with reference to Roberts v. City of Boston in 1849, where Sarah C. Robert’s father sued the city, unsuccessfully, for her right to attend an all white school closer to her home. The case was later cited in the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision which established the legal justification for segregation throughout the country. The President shared these and other tales of action, from Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall typing up briefs in their car to Melba Patillo who, at 15 years old, was one of nine black students who enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1956. Casting the fight for civil rights not as a chapter of US history which had been closed, but rather as an ongoing struggle to which every generation must apply their energy and hope. Remarking, “America has yet to reach the high calling of its own ideals. Yet we're a nation that strives to do right. And we honor those who expose our failures, correct our course, and make us a better people.”

Across the city, then Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator John Kerry spoke on the steps of the Kansas State Capitol marking the 50th Anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Kerry, a Vietnam war veteran, spoke on the history and legacy of the Brown decision, emphasizing the role of Second World War veterans in the fight for civil rights upon their return to the homefront. Like, President George W. Bush’s speech on the same day Kerry called on the American people to remain committed to the ideals of the Brown decision, to carry on the fight to build an America that ensures that each of its citizens enjoy the fullness of their freedoms. Speaking to a crowd of roughly 4,000, Kerry quoted Langston Hughes, who was raised in Lawrence, Kansas, in remarks that drew from the Harlem Renaissance poet’s renowned Let American Be America Again, O’ let my land be a land where liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

Notable Attendees:

• Stephen E. Adams, Park Superintendent
• Fran Mainella, Director, National Park Service
• Cheryl Brown Henderson, President, Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research
• Mr. Will Rogers, President, Trust for Public Land
• Mr. Robert Stanton, Board Member, African American Experience Fund
• Dennis Hayes, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• The Honorable James A. McClinton, Mayor of Topeka, Kansas
• The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings, United States House of Representatives
• The Honorable Jim Ryun, United States House of Representatives
• The Honorable Sam Brownback, United States Senate
• The Honorable Rod Paige, Secretary of Education
• Judge Craig Manson, Assistant Secretary of the Interior
• The Honorable Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior
• Mr. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Supreme Court of the United States
• The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas
• The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights Movement Forefather (featured speaker - 15 minutes)
• George W. Bush, President of the United States