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Brown v. Board at 70: We need ‘extraordinary courage’ to maintain our progress

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I still remember where I used to be on May 17, 1954, after I first heard that the United States Supreme Court had issued this decision. Walking home from segregated Lincoln High School in Sumter, South Carolina, I and my classmates rejoiced that the Supreme Court recognized that “separate but equal” is “inherently unequal.”

We were ninth and tenth grade students and our youthful naivety convinced us that in September we might now not learn from old textbooks and used exercise books. We envisioned having more modern classrooms and well-equipped science laboratories. We had no concept that by the point we made any serious effort to implement this decision, most of us would graduate from highschool, college, and grow to be everlasting employees. The road to , one of the significant legal decisions of the twentieth century, began in little-known Clarendon County, South Carolina.

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When the lawsuit was filed, Clarendon County was spending the cash $179 for a white student compared to just $42 for a black student. While white students attended schools with running water, modern libraries, state-of-the-art classrooms, and over 30 buses, black schools had much less. Black students were also forced to walk to school, a few of them as much as seven miles. The parents asked for a bus for his or her children and were refused. This denial sparked an unprecedented movement that gave rise to extraordinary courage in some bizarre people. With the assistance of non secular leaders, the local NAACP chapter, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 23 brave men signed a petition that led to a lawsuit filed on May 16, 1950.

The case, named for Harry Briggs, the unique signatory of the petition, and R.W. Elliott, president of the Clarendon County School Board, was tried in federal court before a three-judge panel that issued a 2-to-1 ruling against the petitioners. The officiating judge was J. Waites Waring, a native of Charleston and grandson of a Confederate soldier. Judge Waring was awarded a federal judgeship for his successful management of the campaign of Democratic senator Ellison D. “Cotton Ed” Smith, a white supremacist.

Judge Waring’s role was to preside over the case of the blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard. Sgt. Woodard – a black, decorated World War II veteran traveling on a Greyhound bus to Winnsboro, South Carolina, still in uniform after his honorable discharge – was blinded when a neighborhood police officer forcibly pulled him from the bus and punched him. nightstick. Instead of receiving treatment, Woodard was thrown in prison. Charges were ultimately brought against the police chief, but he was acquitted by an all-white jury.

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Woodard’s case caught the eye of President Harry Truman, who showed “extraordinary courage” and issued Executive Order 9981 integrating the armed forces. Presiding over this case proved instructive for Judge Waring and prompted him to show “extraordinary courage” in his dissent from Briggs. He wrote: “They have shown beyond any doubt that the evils of segregation and color prejudice result from early training… and it is an evil that must be eradicated.”

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Twenty years ago, I wrote somewhat desk book titled “Extraordinary Courage: The Story of Briggs V. Elliott, South Carolina’s Civil Rights Battle” to commemorate the courage of the Briggs plaintiffs. If I were writing this book today, I can be far more expansive in recognizing the “extraordinary courage” he displayed at the time. It took “extraordinary courage” for President Truman to issue the chief order and for Judge Waring to dissent. Their extraordinary courage has led to significant progress towards a “more perfect Union”.

We have made enormous progress during the last 70 years. But our progress is at risk, and as we mark the seventieth anniversary of that call, our nation finds itself at one other crossroads. We must ask ourselves: what form of country do you wish to leave to your kids and our kid’s children? This query motivated the Briggs petitioners, President Truman, and Judge Waring.

There seems to have been some backlash to the election of our first African-American president, our first African-American female vp, and our first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Perhaps now greater than ever, our country desperately needs “extraordinary courage” to protect the freedoms we hold dear and proceed our quest for a “more perfect Union.”


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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Education

The Department of Justice has completed a ten -year school desegregation order. Others are expected to fall

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When the Department of Justice raised the order for school desegregation in Louisian this week, officials called his further existence “bad historical” and suggested that others with the Civil Rights Movement must be considered again.

The end of the legal agreement of 1966 with Plaquemines Parish Schools announced on Tuesday shows that Trump’s administration, “re -focusing of America in our bright future,” said the assistant of the Prosecutor General Harmeet Dhillon.

In the Department of Justice, officials appointed by President Donald Trump expressed their desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders, which they perceive as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person conversant in the issue that received anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak public.

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Dozens of school districts within the south remain as part of contracts enforced by the court, dictating steps in the sector of integration, many years after the Supreme Court limited racial segregation in education. Some perceive the strength of court orders as a sign that the federal government has never eliminated segregation, while officials in Louisiana and in some schools perceive orders as past relics that must be removed.

The Department of Justice opened a wave of matters within the Sixties, after the Congress released the department to follow schools that were based on desegregation. Known as consent decrees, orders may be raised when districts prove that they’ve eliminated segregation and its heritage.

Mark Zuckerberg closes the schools that he launched for colored communities

The small district of Louisiana has a long -lasting case of integration

The Trump administration called Plaquemines an example of administrative neglect. It was found that the Delta Delta of the Mississippi River within the south -eastern Louisiana integrated in 1975, however the case was to remain under the view of the court for the subsequent yr. The judge died in the identical yr, and the judicial register “seems to be lost in time,” in accordance with the court application.

“Considering that this case remained for half a century with zero proceedings by the court, parties or any third parties, the parties are satisfied that the United States’s claims were fully resolved,” in accordance with the joint submission of the Department of Justice and the Office of the Prosecutor General Liz Murill.

SUPERINTENDENT Plaquemines Shelley Ritz said that the officials of the Department of Justice still visited yearly in 2023 and asked for data on topics, including employment and discipline. She said that the documentation was a burden for her district lower than 4,000 students.

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“These were data compilation hours,” she said.

Louisiana “gained his act ten years ago,” said Leo Terrell, senior adviser to the Civil Rights Department on the Department of Justice, in a statement. He said that the discharge is corrected by historical evil, adding that “the time had been going to recognize how far we have come.”

Murrill asked the Department of Justice to close other school orders in her condition. In a statement she promised cooperation with schools in Louisiana to help them “put the past in the past.”

Activists for civil rights claim that that is the improper move. Many orders have been loosely enforced only in recent many years, but this doesn’t mean that problems have been resolved, said Johnathan Smith, who worked within the Department of Civil Rights of the Department of Justice in the course of the administration of President Joe Biden.

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“It probably means the opposite – that the school district remains sorted. In fact, most of these districts are now more sorted than in 1954.” – said Smith, who’s currently the chief of staff and general adviser to the National Center for Youth Law.

An outstanding pastor notified about the books of the borrowed African American Museum can be returned among the review

Desegregation orders include a number of instructions

According to the files of submitting this yr, over 130 school systems are based on the desegregation orders of the Department of Justice. The overwhelming majority are in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, with smaller numbers in states equivalent to Florida, Louisiana and South Karolina. Some other districts remain on the premise of separate desegregation agreements with the education department.

Orders may include a number of remedies, from bus requirements to district policy, enabling students in black schools to transfer to the fundamental white. Agreements are between the school district and the US government, but other parties may ask the court to intervene after they resumed signs of segregation.

In 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund referred to the Decree of consent within the Leeds school district in Alabama, when he stopped offering school meals in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Civil Rights Group said that it’s disproportionately harmful to black students, in violation of the desegregation order. The district agreed to resume meals.

Last yr, the school board in Louisiana closed mainly the Black Primary School near the petrochemical institution after NACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said that he disproportionately exposes black students to health threats. The Council made a decision after the group submitted a request to a ten -year desegregation order within the parish of St. John the Baptist.

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The release caused alarms amongst some who are afraid that this may occasionally withdraw his many years of progress. Research on districts exempt from orders showed that many have recorded a greater increase in racial segregation compared to those that are subject to court orders.

“In many cases, schools react quite quickly and there are new fears regarding civil rights for students,” said Halley Potter, an older worker of the Century Foundation who studies educational inequality.

The end of orders would cause that desegregation isn’t any longer a priority, said Robert Westley, a professor of anti -discrimination law on the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

“It is really a signaling that the deviation that began some time ago is completed,” said Westley. “The United States government no longer cares about dealing with problems of racial discrimination in schools. This is the end.”

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Raymond Pierce, president and general director of Southern Education Foundation.

“This is a disregard for education for a large part of America. It is a disregard for America’s need for an educated labor force,” he said. “And it is a disregard for the rule of law.”

Trump signs executive orders focused on universities, as well as efforts in the field of school capital

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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The youngest graduate of FAMU 2025 will cross the scene this spring

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FAMU, Florida A&M University, chief of staff, Carmen Cummings-Martin

Famu, Florida A & m University, Chief of Staff, Carmen Cummings-Martin

Curtis Lawrence III was on the headlines in 2021 as the youngest student who enrolled at HBC Florida A & m University, at the age of 16. Now he will finish this spring at the age of 20. He will receive a bachelor’s degree in biology, announced that he had accomplished Summa Cum Laude.

Lawrence’s academic journey in the range included a rigorous course of the course. He participated in classes at Florida State University and was involved in various campus activities. He plans a master’s degree in biology at the University of Villanova as a presidential member. He strives for a profession in the academic environment, specializing in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Lawrence, from Washington, began his journey to College even earlier. He signed up for George Washington University at the age of 14, after he skipped his younger and senior years in schools without Walls High School. Later He selected the famous HBCU Offers of institutions corresponding to Yale and Harvard, accumulating over $ 1.65 million in Merit scholarships.

Thinking about his time in Fam, Lawrence said: “Four years in which I was here, I did a lot and changed a lot as a person and I am ready to go to the next chapter.”

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His parents, Curtis Lawrence Jr. And Malene Lawrence, they expressed great pride of their son’s achievements.

“We are incredibly proud of his perseverance and consistent dedication of perfection,” said Curtis Lawrence Jr. “His journey reminds that it is possible with faith, hard work and support.”

Lawrence’s brother, Corey, also attends FAM and is predicted to graduate in two years, continuing his family’s educational heritage.

FAMU starting ceremony They are scheduled for May 2-3 in the multifunction center Alfred Lawson Jr.

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Lawrence’s amazing journey is an inspiration for a lot of. His journey is an example of the impact of dedication, support and commitment to perfection.

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This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Harvard University cancels funds for black studies and other affinity group celebrations

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This 12 months, the graduation season may look different at Harvard University. This week, the institution of the Ivy League announced that the university will now not be visible or financed by the affiliate group celebrations in the course of the weekend weekend in the sunshine of the US Education Department at Dei.

In E -Mail sent to student affinity groups on Monday afternoon, the university stated that these groups would now not receive “financing, staff or space for affinity celebration.”

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“Harvard remains involved in building a community in which people who bring a wide range of origin, experiences and perspectives to learn, develop and develop, and equally involved in compliance with the law,” said spokesman for the University of Jason A. Newton, on Harvard Crimson.

E -Mail continued: “We are ready to answer questions or fears during this passage.”

The NACP lawsuit says that the Education Department

Harvard was one among the many colleges that received federal financing from the US Education Department, if he didn’t meet the tickets of the Trump administration to dismantle the range, equality and inclusion initiatives. After the President of Harvard University, Alan M. Garber, revealed the refusal of the University of Trump’s demands, Ivy League was still fighting the threats related to freezing funds for many billion dollars from the US Education Department.

During the start of 2024, Harvard hosted 10 affinity ceremonies for Arabs, black, native, Latinówka, the primary generation, low -income graduates, Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi. In response to this message, Harvard’s Black Alumni Society began a campaign to lift funds in the quantity of USD 50,000 to finance the Black Graduation ceremony in 2025.

“This is an unfortunate message, but HBA will continue to focus their energy and resources on the protection of the experience of black students,” said the We -Mail organization for graduates. “Your contribution, regardless of the size, will directly strengthen their current students and ensure these important aspects of their Harvard travel will remain intact.”

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When universities attempt to take a break from these mandates to dismantling Dei, NAACP filed a lawsuit against the Education Department of anti-dei orders. Derrick Johnson, president and general director of NAAC, described the department’s orders as “a gross distortion of reality that tries to remove the live experiences of millions of black and brown children in this country.”

“The Education Department, for the task of responsibility for the protection of civil rights of all children, instead claims that system racism does not exist – effectively sanctioning discrimination itself, that our regulations regarding civil rights have been designed to prevent”, Johnson added “meanwhile, children in color consistently take part in segregated, chronically uncomposed schools, by which they receive less educational opportunities by which they receive less educational and greater opportunities by which they receive less Discipline doesn’t deny them the reality – that is replaced by our request.

The Education Department threatens the financing of public schools over Dei - but does not explain what counts as Dei

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This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
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