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Race and the American Creed
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“How Segregation Came to Be”
Mr. Owens:Hello.
Nicole:My grandfather said I should come and talk to you.
Mr. Owens:So you’re Nicole. Your granddaddy and I go way back.
Nicole:He said you were like an old-time storyteller. Grandad really wants me to know our story.
Mr. Owens:Let me guess, you’ve had Black History Month every year since 1st grade. You know dates, places, names.
Nicole:What I don’t get is how this whole black-white thing got started.
Mr. Owens:You mean, even though the American creed is freedom and equality…
Nicole:Americans had slaves.
Mr. Owens:I prefer to say “enslaved people.” It’s not who we were naturally. It was imposed on us.
Chorus:“…enacted and declared, that baptism of slaves doth not exempt them from bondage.” “If any slave shall resist his master, his death shall not be accounted a felony.”
Nicole: What’s that?
Mr. Owens:That’s the slave codes.
Chorus:All children, now born or hereafter to be born of such Negroes and slaves, shall be slaves…in perpetuity.”
Mr. Owens:You were property. The English colonists sat down and wrote those laws. It didn’t just happen.
Nicole:Our African ancestors were people. Why did the English think it was okay to treat them that way?
Mr. Owens:Well, to the English, West Africans were different. We looked different, had different languages, different cultures, even different gods.
Nicole:Well, we could change any of that except for our…Together:…skin color.
Mr. Owens:And that is what the colonists used to establish themselves as superior.
Chorus:“In memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, in imagination they are dull, tasteless.”
Nicole:“Dull, tasteless?”
Mr. Owens:That’s Thomas Jefferson.
Nicole:He wrote the Declaration of Independence, “All men are created equal.”
Mr. Owens:He knew that slavery was unfair, but he also believed that blacks were inferior. Slaves were at the bottom of society, so he thought, it was their natural place in the world. Our natural place.
Nicole:Benjamin Banneker wasn’t “inferior in reason.” He knew atronomy and there were preachers and poets.
Mr. Owens flips a penny and sets it head side up on the table. Nicole:Oh, I get it. That’s Abraham Lincoln. We’re going to talk about the EmancipationProclamation.
Chorus:“All persons held as slaves in said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be Free.”
Nicole:Free…and equal?
Mr. Owens:Ending slavery was fine, but it didn’t establish equality. Southern states just replaced the slave codes with “black codes.”
Nicole:“Black codes?”
Mr. Owens:You couldn’t lease your farm. Couldn’t serve on a jury. Couldn’t quit your job.
Nicole:Couldn’t quit your job?
Mr. Owens:No matter how badly you were treated. See, it was hard for most whites to imagine equality. The black codes didn’t last long. Soon after came Jim Crow.
Chorus:“Separate the white and colored race. Separate railroad cars. Schools for white children and schools for Negro children.” Restaurants. Separate! Housing. Separate!
Mr. Owens:Some places you couldn’t even go fishing with white people.
Chorus:“We cannot say that a law which requires the separation of the two races is unreasonable.”
Mr. Owens:In 1896, “separate but equal” became the law of the land.
Nicole:No “equal” for us. We had to settle for separate but not even close to equal.
Mr. Owens:Hold on. We have been fighting for real equality for almost four hundred years. But we’re where we are today because our ancestors did not “settle.”
“Resistance”
SFX: gunshots, screams
SFX: gunshots, horses fleeing Chorus:“A great number of Negroes arose in rebellion.”
Nicole:This stuff on slaves fighting back, I didn’t know that.
Mr. Owens:Oh, we’ve always resisted injustice. There were some out-and-out rebellions, but there were lots of other ways to fight back.
Nicole:Sneaking out at night?
Mr. Owens:Not taking a whipping lying down.
Nicole:Talking back?
Mr. Owens:Lots of small ways. Scared them so they tightened up the laws and increased the punishments.But it still didn’t stop people from resisting. 1780. Massachusetts.
Nicole:Yeah? So? What’s that about?
Chorus:“Article One. All men are born free and equal.”
Mr. Owens:Elizabeth Freeman said that slavery violated the Massachusetts Constitution. So she sued for her freedom.
Nicole:Oh, she went to court!
SFX: gavel Mr. Owens:She won. And pretty soon, Massachusetts abolished slavery along with the rest of the northern states.
Nicole:Well then, why didn’t people go to court everywhere?
Mr. Owens:In the South, we had no rights to the courts. But we could run away.
(singing) Follow the drinking gourd,
Nicole:The Underground Railroad!
Mr. Owens:
(singing) When the sun goes down and the first quail calls,
follow the drinking gourd.
Nicole:Walking at night. Hiding in the daytime.
Mr. Owens:Looking for the Big Dipper.
Nicole:Going toward the North Star.
Mr. Owens:North to freedom.
Nicole:They were taking matters into their own hands, not waiting for white people to change the rules.
Chorus:“If the hereditary bondmen would be free, they themselves must strike the blow.”
Mr. Owens:Henry Highland Garnet called for armed revolt. Shocked all those folks at the National Negro Convention.
Nicole:Negro convention?
Mr. Owens:Big meetings. Free African Americans, coming together to set our own agenda, without white leaders. Talk about education, self-improvement, equality.
Nicole:Sticking together. Solidarity.
Mr. Owens:Yeah, but until we had the vote, it was only a meeting.
Chorus:“If the Negro knows enough to shoulder a musket and fight for the flag, he knows enough to vote.”
Mr. Owens:Did you know, after the Civil War we got the vote? We used it, too. Put a lot of our people into office. In the 1890s, they took away our vote. White politicians figured that if they couldn’t control how we voted, which they couldn’t, they’d take away the right. So they did.
Nicole:I can’t wait ‘til I can vote. When we couldn’t vote, what power did we have?
Mr. Owens:There were times when the only weapon we had was telling the truth.
Chorus:
Pittsburgh Courier!HOODED BAND ATTACKS MAN’S HOME
FARMER FORCED TO HIDE IN WOODS AS TERRORISTS RULE NEW LYNCHING ON SATURDAY
Read all about it!
Mr. Owens:African American newspapers kept the truth out there.
Chorus:The butcheries of black men at Barnwell, South Carolina. Waycross, Georgia. Memphis, Tennessee. Flaying alive a man in Kentucky. The burning of one in Arkansas. “728Afro-Americans lynhed during the past eight years.”
Mr. Owens:Telling the truth could be dangerous. But no one was braver than Ida B. Wells. They burned her press, but she kept right on writing the truth. She helped found the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to try to put a stop to that terrorism.
Nicole:Like the Negro Conventions?
Mr. Owens:Yeah, but the NAACP had some powerful white friends too.
Radio announcer:This program is coming to you from The Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City.
Music:
1920s jazz
Nicole:That’s cool music!
Mr. Owens:Yeah, music, dance, writing. Expressing your thoughts and feelings could be a form of resistance as much as going to court or running away. It got people to start seeing that we were people too, people with gifts.
Nicole:And equality?
Mr. Owens:Things were changing. Not real fast yet, but we were starting to be heard. And they’d hear a lot more from us by and by.
“War and National Service”
SFX: muskets firing Chorus:“Shall we be citizens in war, and aliens in peace?”
Mr. Owens:That’s Frederick Douglass saying that if the country needed our boys to fight in the Civil War, they need to have the rights of citizens ans be able to vote.
Nicole:And even after we won the Civil War, could we vote?
Mr. Owens:Most places, no.
Nicole:We were segregated. Our people were lynched. Why would we ever fight again?
Mr. Owens:Because we believed in what the country said it stood for.
Nicole:So, when the country needs us, why can’t we say, “What about equality?”
Mr. Owens:In World War I we got the Army to commission African American officers. Seeing some smart, well-dressed, confident African American soldiers was too much for some people. Coming home, some of our boys got shot or lynched.
Music:
Taps
German crowd:
Heil! Heil!
Nicole:America wasn’t the only country that had racism.
Mr. Owens:No, in World War II, we were fighting Nazi racism in Europe. So, back home people had to talk about how they were treating us. And not only us. In the Army, Japanese Americans were segregated too.
Nicole:And their families were sent to “relocation centers” like prison camps. Like sons in our Army they’s be on Japan’s side.
Mr. Owens:World War II was a turning point. Lots of African American firsts.
Chorus:The first Marines. Officer candidate schools. The 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion. The 99th Pursuit Squadron. 332nd Fighter Group.
Mr. Owens:Lots of heroes.
Nicole:I’ll bet they trained extra hard just to be considered equal.
Chorus:Distinguished Service Cross. Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mr. Owens:
“Hitler may rant, Hirohito may rave,
But I’m going after freedom If it leads to my grave.“
Nicole:
“so this is what I want to know:
When we see Victory’s glow, Will you still let old Jim Crow Hold me back?”
Mr. Owens:The
Pittsburgh Courier newspaper said that we needed victory at home and victory abroad. The “Double V.”
Chorus:“We wage a two-pronged attack against our enslavers at home and those abroad who would enslave us. We have a stake in this fight. We are Americans, too.”
Mr. Owens:Even though our papers supported the War, they exposed discrimination in the military. Almost half a million African Americans served overseas. Our boys fought for America. But when those smart, well-dressed, confident African Americans came home…
Nicole:Not again?
Mr. Owens:But their lynching moved President Truman. He ordered desegregation in the military and that changed history.
Chorus:“There shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services, without regard to race, color, religion or national origin,”
Mr. Owens:By then we had voters in the northern cities. And voter registration drives in the southern ones. We had started to put our agenda on the political table.
Nicole:I don’t get it. I mean, President Truman was from Missouri – they used to have slavery .
Mr. Owens:Progress in race relations had a lot to do with changing people’s minds about race. We have to believe that we can change people’s minds.
“Education”
Chorus:“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
Mr. Owens:Thomas Jefferson wanted to establish a system of common schools.
Nicole:I don’t think it was for everyone.
Mr. Owens:To dream of education was to dream of freedom. If we could just learn to read and write, we’d have the tools to challenge oppression. That’s why it was against the law to teach us.
Chorus:“$500 or six months in jail. Fine or whipping at the discretion of the court.”
Nicole:$500 must have been a fortune back then. How did you get to learn if it was against the law?
Mr. Owens:You had to learn in secret.
Chorus:“And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, he shall surely be put to death.”
Mr. Owens:It meant so much just to learn to read the Bible. We started our own churches. A lot of our leaders came from African American churches. Long before the Civil War there were eleven African American schools in Philadelphia.Nicole:I know that some white abolitionists founded schools for free blacks, right?
Mr. Owens:Right. Before abolition there were more literate African Americans than you might think. Did you know that some free blacks went to college?
Nicole:Then after emancipation, education wasn’t illegal in the South.
Mr. Owens:Schools sprang up everywhere.
Choir:“It was the most wonderful peace battle of the 19th century. They founded colleges, and up from the colleges shot normal schools and out from the normal schools went teachers.”
Nicole:We knew that education was important. That’s what Du Bois was saying.
Mr. Owens:Education was part of the American creed. It was the way up. You limit access to that, you limit people’s prospects.
Nicole:But it was separate.
Mr. Owens:By about 1950, lots of people began to understand that “separate but equal” was just a cover for completely unequal.
Nicole:Yeah but, weren’t some segregated schools really good?
Mr. Owens:Yeah, there were some excellent schools. Your granddad and I went to one. we had some great teachers. Those schools turned out some exceptional leaders. But exceptional schools were just that – the exception. I had a cousin in the South who went to school in a one room shack with no books, no plumbing.
Nicole:No bathrooms?
Mr. Owens:Not indoors. But segregation was not about buildings and books. It was about who we were and what we could hope for. It was so bad that a beautiful little black girl would tell you that her white doll was prettier than her black one…and nicer…and smarter.
Chorus:We are going to insist on nonsegregation in American public education from top to bottom, from law school to kindergarten.
Mr. Owens:Thurgood Marshall changed the tactics from trying to equalize segregated schools to trying to persuade the courts that segregate schools could never be equal.
Nicole:But what about Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans?
Mr. Owens:Oh, they challenged segregation. But we were the largest group and we had been pressing for full equality for a long time. The NAACP had been gathering support in a lot of cases before
Brown. But it was the
Brown decision.
Nicole:You remember?
Mr. Owens:Like it was yesterday.
Chorus:“In the field of public education the doctrine of
separate but equal has no place.”
Mr. Owens:That ruling was the beginning. Opened up the way to challenge all kinds of segregation. But for me, it started with education, because if you could get an education, you could do almost anything.
“Civil Rights”
Nicole:The Court said segregated schools were unconstitutional.
Mr. Owens:And how fast do you think it changed?
Chorus:“With all deliberate speed…with all deliberate speed…with all deliberate speed.”
Nicole:“With all deliberate speed.”
Mr. Owens:Some people heard “speed.” Other people heard “deliberate,” which means “slow.” About 100 members of Congress said “never.”
Nicole:Never what?
Mr. Owens:Never desegregate.
Nicole:But the Supreme Court ruled…
Mr. Owens:But it’s one thing to rule on the law, it’s another thing to put that ruling into effect. We had governors and member sof Congress telling people they didn’t have to obey the Court. These people took a difficult situation and made it worse, like pouring gasoline on a fire.
Nicole:They thought the states could decide if they wanted to enforce federal court orders? Like it was optional?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
Mr. Owens:President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock.
Brown v. Board had overturned the “separate but equal” ruling for schools, but we had to challenge segregation everywhere, get the issues into the courts, get the courts to overturn all of those Jim Crow segregation laws.
Nicole:So, it wasn’t that Rosa Parks just got fed up all of a sudden.
Mr. Owens:No. She’d been active in the NAACP, trained in workshops. Montgomery was already organized. That’s why the boycott worked.
Nicole:Just don’t ride the bus. Stop putting your money in the fare box. That’s passive resistance.
Mr. Owens:Non-violent resistance. After Montgomery, instead of there being a single Supreme Court ruling,
Brown v. Board, now there was a nationwide movement. All kinds of people…
Nicole:Sit-ins…
Mr. Owens:Freedom riders.
Nicole:Voter registration drives.
Mr. Owens:It worked. The Court overturned one kind of segregation after another. None of it was easy, but it was happening. President Kennedy had his plate full. We had assembled an overwhelming demand for justice and he had to respond.
President John F. Kennedy:We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it. And we cherish our freedom here at home. But are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other, that this is the land of the free, except for the Negroes. That we have no second-class citizens, except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettos, no master
race, except with respect to the Negroes? Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise.
Mr. Owens:What made the Civil Rights Bill really important was that it put federal enforcement power behind the list of rights. I’ll never forget marching to support that bill.
Nicole:What was it really like?
Mr. Owens:I couldn’t believe my eyes. We got all kinds of people – old and young – to come out and demand equal rights. When President Kennedy was assassinated, it seemed like we’d lost a powerful friend.
Nicole:But the Civil Rights Bill still passed.
Mr. Owens:President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a southerner. He took up the case of civil rights in public, and behind the scenes. Got the Congress on board, one vote at a time.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson:Now we just can’t wait until it’s too late to pass a bill……and I’ve got to pass taxes and civil rights or I quit……you think you can get the votes?…you had about 95 No’s didn’t you? And you had about 140 Yes’s?…I just told them that they either had to have two members from the Party of Lincoln for civil rights, or……I hope you’ll talk to every Texan and tell them how much this means…
Nicole:A lot of work.
Mr. Owens:Freedom takes work. Equality takes work. Democracy takes work, always has. But the Brown decision has brought us a lot closer to living the American creed. Freedom…
Nicole:…and equality.
They Gave Us Good Dreams
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Music
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, US House of Representatives, (D-DC):For those of us who lived in the segregated society, education was everything. We believed that education was the only way to get around discrimination.
Barbara Richards, teacher:My mother understood this and she was a maid; she did housework. And she did not want her daughter to have to put up with this sort of thing, scrub people’s floors, or whatever.
Evelyn Fox Cunningham, journalist,
The Pittsburgh Courier:It almost seems like a cliché when you talk about dreaming of an education when there are bigger dreams out there, bigger things you want to do, and bigger things you talk about. But we basically knew that this was the beginning. This is where one had to be able to function and to excel.
Norton:We saw no other way, so education was the be-all, end-all. We had to have it. If you didn’t have it, you were both black and uneducated, and that was the worst thing in the world to be.
Music Narrator:Most of the 4 million people freed from slavery at the end of the Civil War were illiterate.Only a few had defied the law and learned to read and write.
Badi Foster, president, Phelps-Stokes Fund:We have slavery, and we have the war, and we get freed. There is this pent-up demand to learn how to read. And if you know how to read, you have a moral obligation to reach back and help me.
Music Narrator:During Reconstructions, help came from northern charities that built agricultural andtechnical schools throughout the South. In time, these schools became full-fledged universities. But segregation limited job opportunities for African American graduates
with advanced degrees. Most of them wound up teaching at primary and secondary schools.
Leonard Williams, attorney:My science teacher was a Ph.D. in physics and chemistry. The poor guy was teaching high school. He probably, if he had been, if he had had opportunities in employment, he probably would have been working for DuPont making ten times as much money. Butthat’s what was available to him.
Edwilda Allen Isaac, teacher:Our teachers were devoted to us to see that we would learn. If I was having trouble in math, the math teacher would have me come to her house on Saturdays so she could tutor me.
Rev. J. Samuel Williams, Jr., minister, activist:Our teachers were very positive, very learned people and they, for the most part, drove us. They gave us good dreams.
Music
Barbara Richards:Let me welcome you to the 25th National ACT-SO competition here in this beautiful land of Houston, Texas.
Narrator:Barbara Richards is one of hundreds of teachers who help African American youngsters like these realize their dreams. They do so through a Saturday morning mentoring program called ACT-SO. Sponsored by the NAACP, this program fosters respect for education among African American youngsters.
ACT-SO Mentor:Are you still thinking about watercolor? Are you thinking about mixed media? What are you thinking about doing?
Narrator:ACT-SO mentors help high school students develop competitive projects in the arts, sciences, and humanities.
Barbara Richards:Mentoring is very important. Our youngsters need an atmosphere in which they can thrive and that they can develop.
ACT-SO Mentor:So, for next week, if you don’t feel like reading one of your own poems, please be willing to read someone else’s poem. Something, just so you get a feel for the reading, that’s what we’re really working on.
Choir, singing:Yo yo yo yo yo yo yo…
Vernon Jarrett, journalist, ACT-SO founder:I created ACT-SO out of the sum of the black experience, of the encouragement that African Americans once gave each other when they had nowhere else to go.
Jason Atkins, ACT-SO participant,The title of my project is “Determining the Sensitivity of Technetium-99m Sestamiibi.”
Narrator:Jason Atkins is only one of hundreds of students competing in the national finals of the ACT-SO program. Students from every region of the nation prepared detailed projects in the sciences, humanities, and the arts.
Music
Vernon Jarrett:This is a fantastic thing that we’re trying to do with these kids today, to reorient them back into what contributed so much to our lives. How black people survived all the deprivations and shortcomings and exclusionist activities during the segregated period.
Brooke Ford, ACT-SO participant:My name is Brooke Ford, I’m 17 years old. I saw the problem that current implants only last ten years, so if you could coat it with something that was biocompatible, that it would work. So I experimented with eight different polymers, and I found that sulfonated polystyrene works.
Music:
Sing on, just a little while longer…
Vernon Jarrett:We’ve got to go back in the middle of this climate of racism and do what made it possible for me to get an education and to dream.
Music:
…everything will be all right.
Reginald Champagne, ACT-SO participant:Hi, I’m Reginald Champagne. I’m from DuPage County Illinois ACT-SO Branch, and this is my fourth year in ACT-SO. I made a Navibot. My Navibot is sensing where the line is and making adjustments as necessary.
Stanley Voigt, ACT-SO participant:I love math, and math has been my forte in high school. And as I go throughout college, I will take courses in math, but I’m going to study medicine in the long run.
Leonard Williams:I think I was probably blessed to have had the experience and the exposure of having teachers who were dedicated and devoted and wanting to have us come out of there with strength, and so forth. I’d say 80% of the people who graduated from high school with me went to college.
Vernon Jarrett:You have to become heroic in something other than the usual categories assigned to blacks. A scientist has a right to be a hero, a poet has a right to be a hero, a thinker, a philosopher has a right to be a hero, just as much as an athlete or an entertainer.
The Five Lawsuits
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“The NAACP Strategy”
Music Narrator:The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909. Its members worked for decades to protect African American civil rights in a climate of strong anti-black discrimination and segregation.
Rev. J. Samuel Williams Jr., minister and activist:The NAACP was the only organization that we had upon which we could place reliance.
Roger Wilkins Esq., Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture, George Mason University:The NAACP was the spearhead of the struggle.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr., son of Rev. J. A. De Laine:Most of it was help. How do you get, you need a lawyer, how do you get a lawyer?
Narrator:The NAACP not only provided lawyers to fight acts of discrimination, but also used court cases as a way to change the laws, which supported segregation in the first place.
Badi Foster, president, Phelps-Stokes Fund:They would strategize, strategize, strategize in trying to find the right kind of case, the material, the evidence, the strategy, etc.
Roger Wilkins Esq.:Meanwhile, Charles Hamilton Houston, a brilliant black man who had been brilliantly educated, had been persuaded to become dean of the Howard Law School. And so Houston went and he turned the Howard Law School into a West Point for civil rights lawyers.
Judge Robert L. Carter, NAACP attorney:And his thesis was the way you would attack and eliminate segregation, was in the graduate schools, professional schools, all of those schools, and the colleges.
Oliver Hill, NAACP attorney:Challenge the situation at its weakest point and the weakest point was equal. Everything was segregated but nothing was equal.
Professor Jack Greenberg:They ultimately won a case against the University of Texas Law School, in which the Court held not only could they not segregate, but that segregation itself interfered with the ability to learn. And that was the blueprint for bringing the
Brown case.
Narrator:In 1938, Thurgood Marshall, Houston’s protégé, took over legal leadership at the NAACP.
Roger Wilkins Esq.:Thurgood was a wonderful strategist and he was a great brain-picker.
Evelyn Fox Cunningham, journalist, The Pittsburgh Courier:His awareness of the battle, the intensity of it and the hatred involved, was keen. Very, very keen.
Narrator:He adopted a bold new strategy. No longer would the NAACP seek equalization. Instead, they would attack segregation head-on. Thurgood marshall and his team worked non-stop to develop new lawsuits. They found five test cases from different towns around the country where ordinary students and parents had agreed to sue for desegregation often at great personal risk: Washington, D.C.; Wilmington, Delaware; Farmville, Virginia; Summerton, South Carolina; and Topeka, Kansas.
Professor Jack Greenberg:
Plessy against Ferguson which was the decision that set up, or authorized, or validated segregation, was one that was based on a lot of social scientific principles with no social scientists. They said, “It’s in the natural order of things that blacks and whites should be separate.” We produced some evidence showing that’s not so.
Leonard Williams, attorney, Delaware:In Brown, we get the principle that separate but equal could never be fair. Mere separation equates inferiority.
Narrator:The arguments for the five lawsuits began in the spring of 1952 at the United States Supreme Court. Spectators waited in line just for a chance to witness the proceedings.
Evelyn Fox Cunningham:I could not imagine by any stretch that my hero was going to be standing before this awesome body making an appeal for kids to get together and go to school together, black and white kids, and I am not going to be there? No way! No way!
Narrator:Each member of the NAACP legal team had to argue a case before the justices.
Judge Robert L. Carter:I wasn’t nervous the second day. The first day, I was scared to death.
Professor Jack Greenberg:I just thought it was something that had to be done, was going to be done, we were going to win it, it was going to come out all right.
Narrator:On May 17, 1954, after two years of arguments and deliberation, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the unanimous ruling of the United States Supreme Court. He said, “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.” “Separate education facilities are inherently unequal.”
Evelyn Fox Cunningham:There was my hero, changing all of that, like that! He’d won. I’ll never forget it.
“Clarendon County, South Carolina:
Briggs v. Elliott”
Music
Celestine Parson Lloyd, plaintiff:Summerton was a small, farming town and it was predominantly black. But white people basically ran the whole thing.
Nathaniel Briggs, son of Harry Briggs Sr.:You kind of learned some of the rules of segregation. It wasn’t written rules, to my knowledge, but they were the rules that black people followed.
Narrator:Anti-black discrimination in Clarendon County forced African American children to walk to school regardless of the distance.
Lucy Pearson Witherspoon, niece of Levi Pearson:It was like 9 to 10 miles that we walked one way to school.
Celestine Parson Lloyd:And you would see two or three buses passing you on the way with the white children inside and they even would go as far as to jeer at us.
Lucy Pearson Witherspoon:They would out the window down and spit at us.
Narrator:Rev. Joseph A. De Laine, a local minister, became involved in the struggle for better conditions.
Lucy Pearson Witherspoon:He knew firsthand what was going on. And he just decided that something needs to be done here.
Narrator:In 1948, Rev. De Laine worked with Levi Pearson, a local farmer, to sue the school board for buses. The case was called
Pearson v. County Board of Education.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr., son of Rev. J. A. De Laine
That case was filed and was ultimately thrown out of court because of a technicality as to where he lived.
Narrator:Rev. De Laine and the Pearsons kept pushing. They convinced NAACP attorney, Thurgood Marshall, to develop a new lawsuit against the school board, this time for better schools. As they prepared to find additional plaintiffs, an unexpected opportunity helped build wide support for the case. The students at Scott’s Branch School were having difficulties.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr.:A levy placed on them for receipt of their transcripts with the threat that they would not graduate if they did not pay the levy.
Lucy Pearson Witherspoon:You couldn’t go to college without a transcript.
Narrator:The president of the senior class, Reverdy Wells, suggested that a meeting be called to inform the parents of what was going on.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr.:Word was passed around in the meeting, “If you want to join this effort to get a better school and willing to become a plaintiff, quietly go up to Mr. Harry Briggs’ home after the meeting tonight and talk with Rev. De Laine.”
Narrator:107 plaintiffs signed the petition. Their case was called
Briggs v. Elliott after Harry Briggs, whose name appeared first on the list. Thurgood Marshall led the team of NAACP lawyers and argued the case in front of Judge J. Waties Waring.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr.:And his conclusion was, “You got separate but equal now and it’s not working so why are you suing for it?” That’s when the light hit Mr. Marshall.
Narrator:Equalizing the schools was no longer enough. Marshall changed tactics and resubmitted
Briggs v. Elliott. His revised argument demanded more radical change, school desegregation.
Joseph A. De Laine Jr.:All types of retaliation began to occur.
Celestine Parson Lloyd:People started to lose jobs and they started to lose everything that they had basically.
Nathaniel Briggs:The experience of my father, he worked at a gas station in town. Well, they fired him from this gas station job because he didn’t take his name off the petition.
Lucy Pearson Witherspoon:I can remember times when I was so frightened that I really just couldn’t sleep at night.
Narrator:In 1951, Rev. De Laine’s house was burned to the ground. Later, he fled the state after shooting back at white assailants who threatened his life. Despite years of economic pressure and intimidation the Summerton plaintiffs remained committed to the case.Their perseverance paid off when
Briggs v. Elliott reached the US Supreme Court as part of
Brown v. Board of Education. On May 17, 1954, the Court outlawed segregation in public schools.
Nathaniel Briggs:I look back and I see these folks as being not civil rights people just human rights people. You know that is all that they were after. Just human rights, what is equally under the law. That is what I want for my children.
“Wilmington, Delaware:
Belton v. Gebhart and
Bulah v. Gebhart”Music
Littleton P. Mitchell, NAACP president, Delaware State Conference of Branches (1961- 1991):Delaware was very, very, very segregated.
Leonard Williams, attorney, Delaware:Not only did they practice segregation, they had enacted a lot of laws in Delaware that pretty much sponsored it and favored it. The public bathrooms were segregated, the water fountains were segregated, the public accommodations in terms of restaurants.
Narrator:One man, Louis Redding, would dedicate his career to eliminating segregation and discrimination in the state.
Professor Jack Greenberg:That was a marvelous man, Louis Redding. He was the only black lawyer in the state of Delaware for over twenty years.
Leonard Williams:He had some students who came to him from Delaware State College who wanted to take courses that were not available there but were available at the University of Delaware and they couldn’t get in. So he filed a lawsuit.
Parker v. University of Delaware.
Professor Jack Greenberg:I was sent down to bring a case for Louis Redding against the University of Delaware. You think of Delaware as a northern state. It had been a slaveholding state. The University of Delaware was segregated. And so, we won that case. We won the first case ever to integrate a college.
Narrator:With the Parker decision in his pocket, Redding was prepared to challenge segregation wherever he could.
Leonard Williams:He had experienced all these negative things as he came along. And here is a brilliant, articulate, Harvard-educated, Ivy Leaguer, coming back to his hometown, and he’s
witnessing all of these atrocities in terms of the law and the way his people are treated. And he’s not going to stand for that. He’s not going to just sit there and let that happen.
Littleton P. Mitchell:And he always said, “We have to be vigilant and look to find out where we can really eliminate prejudice and discrimination.”
Narrator:Louis Redding began to file lawsuits challenging discrimination at the lower school levels.
Leonard Williams:Mrs. Bulah was an elderly lady and her child was being taken to a black school five or ten miles from her home and the bus came through to pick up the white kids and took them to school and her child stood there. So she came to see Mr. Redding about that.
Professor Jack Greenberg:And Louis Redding said that, “I’ll bring the case for you, but not get your kid on the bus but to integrate the schools.”
Narrator:Families from Claymont also complained to Mr. Redding. Their teenage children were tired of traveling to Howard High School in Wilmington when white students could attend a high school right in Claymont. With the assistance of Jack Greenberg, Louis Redding argued the two lawsuits,
Bulah v. Gebhart and
Belton v. Gebhart, in front of a state judge. Collins Seitz. Chancellor Seitz had previously ruled to desegregate the University of Delaware.
Leonard Williams:And they fought us. The State took the position that it was okay to have separate but equal, so they didn’t roll over.
Narrator:In April 1952, Collins Seitz ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. He ordered the white high schools in Claymont and Hockessin to admit the African American students immediately.
Professor Jack Greenberg:That was the only one of the cases that had been won in the lower courts. All the other cases were lost in the lower courts.
Narrator:The State appealed the decision and Louis Redding and jack Greenberg went on to defend their victory at the US Supreme Court as part of
Brown v. Board of Education.
Leonard Williams:And it’s interesting, if you look at
Brown, you will find quotations from Seitz’s opinion as to the fact that segregation in and of itself is unequal. And it is that interesting concept and from a little state like Delaware, it says something about the strength of our legal process.
“Farmville, Virginia:
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County”
Music Narrator:In 1951, the students of Robert R. Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, led by juniorBarbara Johns, staged a walkout. They were protesting the inferior condition of their school.
Willie Shepperson, Moton High School, class of 1955:On the day of the walkout, I was fourteen years old. I was coming into the front entrance of the school and Barbara passed me and said, “Everybody needs to go to the auditorium.”
Edwilda Allen Isaac, Moton High School class of 1955:So the teachers were yelling saying, “Come back! Where are you going?”, “Sit down.” And they followed us in the auditorium.
Willie Shepperson:But then Barbara took over. And she was a fireball. I mean she really laid it out there in no uncertain terms.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:We were going to have a walkout and demonstrate to the school board that we were very serious.
Willie Shepperson:They should give us a new school because we’re tired of being in these tarpaper shacks with the rain falling on us.
Narrator:Segregation had forced them to attend overcrowded schools with makeshift buildings, outdated books, and few supplies.
Rev. J. Samuel Williams Jr., Moton High School class of 1955:We had observed and made contrasts with this school to the white school over on First Avenue. We looked at their facilities. We knew what they had over there.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:They had cafeterias, they had excellent libraries, they had gymnasiums. And we had nothing.
Willie Shepperson:I think the tarpaper shacks any of us could have dealt with. But it was a culture. That culture being, it was an extension of what white people told us we were.
Rev. J. Samuel Williams Jr.:You are inferior. You are lazy. You are loud. You are late. You are this, that, and the other.
Willie Shepperson:Racism was so indoctrinated into both communities that it was an accepted thing. It was a normal thing.
Narrator:The student walkout was an unprecedented challenge to race relations in Farmville. It provoked strong reactions.
Rev. J. Samuel Williams Jr.:We were asked to call the strike off several times. But we did not.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:We stayed out ten days. I remember Barbara and Carey thought, “I think we are in trouble. We might need some help.”
Narrator:Help came from Rev. L. Francis Griffin, a World War II veteran and pastor of the First Baptist Church in Farmville.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:He was a powerful speaker. He was able to tell you that segregation is a moral thing. It is connected to religion. You can’t say, “I am a Christian” and do these things to other people, you know.
Narrator:With the help and support of Rev. Griffin, Barbara Johns contacted NAACP attorney Oliver Hill to request legal representation.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:Oliver Hill, he tried to tell Barbie, “You know, we don’t have any time to be bothered with Farmville. Farmville is too small. We are on our way to a bigger place to fight a cause.”
Narrator:Nevertheless, Hill agreed to take the case on the condition that the students fight for integration.
Willie Shepperson:You had Oliver Hill. You had Spottswood Robinson. You had Reverend Griffin. Had it not been for people like this, it never would have happened because basically the folk in Prince Edward’s County were afraid of the white folks, they were afraid of their jobs.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:And it was really a scary time.
Willie Shepperson:They had never seen anybody go up against white folks and win anything. You always lost.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:People who always loved on farms, they were asked to move. Their stuff was thrown out.
Willie Shepperson:Principal Boyd Jones. He was fired because they were so certain that he had something to do with the student rebellion.
Edwilda Allen Isaac:Those who had bank loans were asked to pay them immediately.
Narrator:In spite of the intimidation, the African American community persisted with its efforts. In 1952, attorneys Hill and Robinson argued the case known as
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County on behalf of the Farmville students. No one was surprised when the Court ruled against them. The NAACP appealed the
Davis case to the US Supreme Court where it joined four other lawsuits and became part of
Brown v. Board of Education. To avoid school integration, Prince Edward County closed its public schools for five years beginning in 1959. While public funds were diverted to allow white students to attend private school, African American students had to fend for themselves.
“Topeka, Kansas:
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka”
Music
Charles Scott Jr., son of Charles Scott Sr.:Blacks migrated to Kansas in the hope of freedom and to escape the injustices of the South.
Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of Oliver Brown:No other state was recruiting African Americans, specifically saying, “You can own land. You have freedom of association without that badge of segregation.”
Narrator:Many African Americans settled in Topeka, a modest Midwestern city and capital of the state of Kansas.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:When the influx started to increase, even open-minded, if you will, Kansans decided, “Well, you know, wait a minute.”
Charles Scott Jr.:Kansas did not have “mandated segregation,” they had what is called “permissive segregation.”
Narrator:Although not required, segregation was permitted by law in elementary schools in large cities. In Topeka, African American children from kindergarten through 8th grade had to attend one of four schools in the city.
Charles Scott Jr.:Black children were required to get up a 6 o’clock in the morning to catch a bus to go clear across town, many had to walk across heavily trafficked streets.
Zelma Henderson, plaintiff:My children had to go past one or two schools in order to get to McKinley on the west side.
Narrator:In 1948, the local NAACP president, McKinley Burnett, started to petition the Topeka School Board to desegregate the schools.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:McKinley Burnett took this challenge on alone initially.
Maurita Burnett Davis, daughter of McKinley Burnett:People didn’t seem to care, they were happy and go lucky. They didn’t seem to think too much was wrong.
Charles Scott Jr.:Even among the members of the NAACP, there were only just a few members who were advocating the cause of integration.
Narrator:When the school board refused to grant Burnett’s request, local attorneys Charles Scott Sr., John Scott, and Charles Bledsoe began to organize a legal challenge with the help of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:They recognized that if things were going to change, they had to do it.
Narrator:Unlike other school desegregation lawsuits, the schools for African Americans in Topeka were in relatively good condition and provided excellent teachers. The lawyers looked for another way to prove the harmful effects of segregation.
Charles Scott Jr.:They pursued a theory that segregation was psychologically detrimental to black children and that it impaired their ability and even their desire to learn.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:Although public schools were the battle front, society was the target. the NAACP Legal Defense Fund recognized that if we succeed in this one step, people that understood the law would recognize that these other parts of Jim Crow would have to fall away.
Narrator:McKinley Burnett and the lawyers scrambled to find plaintiffs.
Maurita Burnett Davis:He had a hard time getting people to use their name.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:I think there was a reluctance to really want to stand up because they recognized what was at stake. Fortunately for us, there were the few that didn’t face those types of challenges.
Zelma Henderson:I came from a locality in western Kansas where we had integration and when I got to Topeka I was quite surprised that Topeka was segregated.
Narrator:Twelve women, mostly housewives, agreed to be plaintiffs. They were committed to their children’s education and the least vulnerable to financial pressure.
Zelma Henderson:I thought it was so unfair and I was ready to help correct the situation.
Narrator:Oliver brown, the only male plaintiff, was a shop welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and an aspiring minister.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:I think it was all about finding some way to be taken seriously. My father didn’t want to be marginalized. My father simply stood up with the group, you know. He was willing to be part of the numbers to be counted.
Narrator:
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was filed on February 28, 1951.
Charles Scott Jr.:The US District Court in Topeka found that segregation did have a psychologically detrimental impact upon black children. But they were bound by the precedent in
Plessy
v. Ferguson and were obliged to uphold segregation.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:Judge Walter Huxman ruled the way he believed he should based on the laws on the books. But he knew, and I think that's why he wrote his opinion as he did, leaving the door open for the next level of judicial review.
Narrator:After
Brown v. Board of Education was collectively argued with four other lawsuits at the US Supreme Court, the justices unanimously overturned
Plessy v. Ferguson and outlawed segregation in the public schools.
Cheryl Brown Henderson:When the Court decided people were extremely joyful because even though they recognized the challenges ahead, they had something to be happy about.
“Washington, District of Columbia:
Bolling v. Sharpe”
Music Narrator:By the 1940s, African Americans in Washington, D.C. lived in a community that wasself-sufficient, proud, and not afraid to protest social injustice.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, US House of Representatives:By then the District was almost coming to be a majority black city.
Barbara Dodson Walker, teacher:We had our own society. We had our own nightclubs, we had our own theaters.
Dr. Paul Cooke, teacher:The Library of Congress served everybody. The Smithsonian Institution served everybody without respect to race.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:We knew we were well-trained and educated. And we thought something had to be wrong with white people who segregated us.
Narrator:Limited educational resources hindered a growing population of African American students. They went to overcrowded schools in shits and attended class in hallways.
Dr. Paul Cooke:One track came in at 8 in the morning and stayed until 12 or 12:30. Another track came in at 12:30 and stayed until 4:30. That was really discriminatory and reduced the amount of education those children got.
Narrator:In 1947, Gardner Bishop, a barber from U Street, channeled his outrage into an organized effort to fix the schools.
Judine Bishop Johnson, daughter of Gardner Bishop:When he found out that we were attending school on a part-time basis, he became terribly upset. He decided he was going to do something about it.
Narrator:Gardner Bishop created the Consolidated Parent Group. Its mission was to pressure the school board to improve school conditions.
Judine Bishop Johnson:He was always in the forefront. He didn’t send anybody else to do the work.
Narrator:The Consolidated Parent Group successfully organized a boycott of several D.C. public schools. For weeks few students attended class.
Judine Bishop Johnson:Nobody could believe that this loudmouth black man, this barber no less, had accomplished this.
Narrator:When the boycott failed to produce significant results, Gardner Bishop contacted NAACP attorney Charles Hamilton Houston. They collaborated on lawsuits to try to equalize the schools.
Judine Bishop Johnson:Mr. Houston just worked with Daddy for three years pulling all of this together before he became very, very ill. And I know when he died, my father cried. He really did because they had become very, very close friends.
Narrator:Before he died, Houston instructed Bishop to get James Nabrit and George Hayes, two prominent civil rights attorneys in Washington D.C. to take over. They convinced Bishop to challenge segregation directly. The Consolidated Parent Group arranged for eleven African American students to try to enroll at the all-white Sousa Junior High School.When they were refused, Nabrit and Hayes sued the school board. The case was called
Bolling v. Sharpe.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:
Bolling v. Sharpe was one of the five cases that went before the Supreme Court, had to be argued separately because the District of Columbia comes under the 5th Amendment technically, and not the 14th Amendment, because we’re not a state.
Narrator:James Nabrit argued before the US Supreme Court that, “In the capital of the free world, there is no place for a segregated school system.” The US Supreme Court announced its judgment on May 17, 1954.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:We instantly knew something momentous had happened because I was sitting in a high school classroom when the principal, Dr. Charles Lofton, rang the bell for the communications system and asked for all of us to listen.
Judine Bishop Johnson:My father was at work. He called home. He called home to tell us the good, good news.
Narrator:The Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional. That decision set the precedent for dismantling all forms of segregation.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton:It was a magnificent decision, not only because it paved the way for a whole set of laws and a whole set of actions in the society, but because young people like me somehow understood that it was time for a civil rights movement.
Hall of Courage
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Screen 1:
2, 4, 6, 8, we don’t want to integrate!
Close those schools!
Don’t let them open up!
Nigger!
We still will not mix up with a bunch of black savages!
You will not take their children away from them!
Screen 2:
2, 4, 6, 8, we don’t want to integrate!
They don’t want to come to school.
They just want to come and cause trouble.
Nigger!
Gentleman, my conscience is clear.Go Home, nigger!
Screen 3:
Because I didn’t want them to go to school with the niggers.I wasn’t raised with them, I never have lived with them, and I’m not going to start now.
Nigger!
I’m for anything that happens to them.
Fight! I mean fight!
Screen 4:
The minute they walk in, we walk out.
Nigger!
…and I say, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”
You’ve got to keep the white and the black separate.
Send them back to Africa! Send them back to Africa!
What Do You Think?
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Featuring clips from Lifetime’s Any Day Now and youth from The Empower Program in Washington, D.C.
Narrator:The
Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 sparked a civil rights movement that demanded equality in all areas of life for all Americans. While this movement successfully broke down barriers and changed our society, we still face many struggles today. At The Empower Program in Washington, D.C., this youth group seeks solutions to some of society’s biggest problems: sexism, racism, violence…
Shanterra McBride, youth moderator:We’re going to watch a video of two different shows. And we’re just going to have a discussion. We’re just going to be very free about it and just say whatever you feel. It’s the show called
Any Day Now that comes on Lifetime. And so, let’s just watch.
Any Day Now, “It’s a Good Thing I’m Not Black,” July 2000
Question:When is it appropriate to use race as a factor in law enforcement?
- Always
- Never
- Sometimes
- I’m not sure
Narrator:The issue of racially biased policing has been a controversial topic in the United States for many years.
Rebecca, youth:I agree that it has a lot to do with power.
Arthur, youth:Some of them shouldn’t be police.
Naeem, youth: It’s not right.
Rebecca, youth:It’s one of those things when you’re embarrassed almost to be white.
Bria, youth:You let them go by just because he’s black and you’re black.
Officer Royce, Any Day Now:Race is only one factor in a profile.
Robert, youth:No matter what color they are, it’s kind of hard not to stereotype.
Shanterra, youth moderator:In this scene from the show, Renee is questioning two police officers following the arrest of a young man named Billy Reubens. Billy was pulled over and arrested on suspicion of a crime he didn’t commit. He was later released and Renee believes the police targeted him because he is African American.
Renee, Any Day Now:You claim you stopped my client because he fit the description of a robbery suspect. What was that description?
Officer 2, Any Day Now:I can’t recall exactly at this time.
Renee, Any Day Now:Mrs. Lockia, didn’t you prep your client?
Mrs. Lockia, Any Day Now:He can’t tell you what he can’t recall Ms. Jackson.
Renee, Any Day Now:Well, let me refresh your memory. The only description that even remotely fits my client is that of an African American male, 30 to 40 years of age, salt and pepper short- cropped hair, moustache, beard, dark brown skin. Ring any bells?
Officer 2, Any Day Now:I can’t recall exactly at this time.
Officer Royce, Any Day Now:I can’t recall exactly at this time.
Renee, Any Day Now:Officer Royce, do you use racial profiling?
Officer Royce,
Any Day Now:Race is only one factor in a profile; it is not an entire profile.
Renee, Any Day Now:What exactly is a profile?
Officer Royce,
Any Day Now:You look at a particular type of crime, say drug traffic, you look at the statistics of arrests and convictions and you find a commonality among a majority of perpetrators.
Renee,
Any Day Now:Commonality such as race, perhaps?
Officer Royce,
Any Day Now:As I said, race is only one factor.
Shanterra, youth moderator:In many cases, communities and individuals have fought back in the courts, alleging that law enforcement officers inappropriately use race when deciding whom to detain. Many of these cases appear to reveal patterns of bias within law enforcement agencies. Whether or not these patterns exist we must ask ourselves the following question:
Question:When is it okay to use race as a factor in law enforcement?
Jiselle, youth:Always, because the cops need to use any tools available to them to catch the criminals to help the community be a safe place. And if it means using race then they need to use it.
Naeem, youth:Never. We live in a democratic society. Targeting people of a certain race is not fair.
Bria, youth:Sometimes it is necessary to use race as a factor in a case if they have specific information that perhaps an African American or white or Hispanic did the crime. But they should not take prejudice against the entire race and use aggressive force against the race in an inappropriate manner.
Rebecca, youth:I’m not sure. I think it’s a very complicated issue. Sometimes I think it’s appropriate, but other times I think it would lead to more serious issues like racism. I think I’ll need to know more facts before I can judge this.
Question:Did hearing them change your mind?
Any Day Now, “Nothing Personal,” September 2000
Question:When is it appropriate to give preferential treatment based on race?
- Always
- Never
- Sometimes
- I’m not sure
Narrator:In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order requiring government agencies and contractors to “take affirmative action” to ensure equality in all aspects of employment. The law was meant to increase opportunity for groups that had historically experienced discrimination, such as minorities and women. Over time, the term Affirmative Action has come to imply providing advantages and opportunities to some groups over others. Such policies are at the center of a great controversy.
Robert, youth:It’s like, are you going to support your race, are you going to support your friends.
Bria, youth:The big white boy companies will all hire each other.
Jiselle, youth:But when it’s Caucasian we think that they’re assuming too much. It’s not about their race.
M.E., Any Day Now:When someone treats a person different because of their race, that’s discrimination!
Arthur, youth:He didn’t get the job, so he was looking for another reason to blame.
Rebecca, youth:Like whites have been so used to getting things and always being on top for so long.
Renee, Any Day Now:He sees any opportunity given to black people as a setback for whites.
Bria, youth:When things don’t go their way, they pull out the race card.
Jiselle, youth:I think it’s kind of ironic that white people are dealing with discrimination.
Shanterra, youth moderator:In this scene from the show, M.E. and Renee are meeting for lunch to discuss a conflict they have: M.E.’s husband, Collyer, did not get a construction job on a government project. He thinks it is because he is white and the general contractor wants to hire only African Americans. He has decided to sue the general contractor. The problem is, the contractor that he is suing is Renee’s client.
Renee,
Any Day Now:Can’t you talk Collyer out of this lawsuit?
M.E.,
Any Day Now:Why would I do that? I’m the one who told him to do it. Besides, I think he’s sort of right.
Renee,
Any Day Now:What do you mean “sort of”?
M.E., Any Day Now:Look, when someone treats a person different because of their race, that’s discrimination.
Renee,
Any Day Now:And it’s reverse discrimination now because white people are suffering instead of black?
M.E., Any Day Now:Whaddya think, black people got a monopoly on suffering?
Renee,
Any Day Now:No, but we have a hell of a lot more experience at it. And equating 300 years of slavery, discrimination and racism with losing a drywall contract is insulting and don’t you tell me you disagree.
M.E.,
Any Day Now:That’s not what this about at all.
Renee,
Any Day Now:But that’s what Shackleford is going to imply. He sees any opportunity given to black people as a setback for whites. Losing power is what he’s afraid of and he will use any legal argument to hold on to it.
Shanterra, youth moderator:The question of how to ensure that everyone in our society has equal opportunities is a difficult one. We asked our youth forum to debate this question. But first, we’d like to hear from all of you. Let’s take a poll.
Question:When is it okay to give preferential treatment based on race?
Rebecca, youth:It is always necessary to give preferential treatment based on race and to minorities because they have been struggling and had so many disadvantages for so long that now they need extra advantages just to create equality.
Jiselle, youth:Never, because race shouldn’t play a role in anything. You should be considered by your experiences or for your qualifications.
Bria, youth:sometimes it is necessary to use race to help minorities advance in certain areas. Other times it can just cause discrimination and that’s wrong so both sides have their disadvantages.
Arthur, youth:I don’t know when it’s okay to give preferential treatment based on race because we don’t have a level playing field for minorities to succeed, but we don’t want to give them opportunities they didn’t earn, and we want to be fair.
Question:Did hearing them change your mind?
Shanterra, youth moderator:As I’ve said, these questions can be tough and the answers are not yet clear to anyone. What’s important is to keep an open dialogue.
Pass It On
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SFX:
TV static
TV channel change
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (VO):We waited a long time for freedom.
SFX:
TV channel change
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (VO):A long time for freedom.
SFX:
TV channel change
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (VO):We are trying to remind the nation of the urgency of the moment. Now is the time. Now is the time.
Music:
If here is where it all may end Another place
That I have never seen
And now the time to start again I realize
Tomorrow’s where I’ve been
I stole across the sands of time I’ll never know
When life began to end
Male #1:Back in the civil rights movement, the dream was, basically for black people to have the same rights as white people did, but on paper. I think now it transcends that because we have it on paper, but we don’t have it up here (points to head).
Music:
Forever my heart Forever I dream Forever my heart
Male #2:I belong to a generation that doesn’t see much race depending upon where the peers of my age grew up.
Male #3:There’s still segregation here, although it’s not visible.
Female #1:We’ve come so far.
Male #2:I believe there’s been a lot of progress since the mid-50s.
Female #1:Since then, so many things have changed.
Female #2:Things aren’t exactly equal.
Male #3:I’ve been called a fair number of things.
Female #2:People have a tendency of using certain stereotypes.
Male #3:Racial slurs and all that.
Female #3:There is no reason why there should be kids out there growing up and feeling oppressed or feeling isolated.
Female #4:If you live in the United States, your race or ethnicity is very much a part of who you are and your day-to-day existence. I’ve grown up in an era where civil rights, or the idea
that people should have them, was accepted but I don’t think that that’s enough. And yeah, I do hope to pass that on.
Female #5:It’s not about one race saying, “We need to be on top because for so long, we’ve been on the bottom.” It’s more about one race saying, “We’re just as equal as you. Let’s go through this together.”
Male #4:I think the new dream will consist of people just being able to walk down the street and not having to look twice. I think that’s really the new dream. I think that’s really the new dream.
Music
|
