Representatives from all five families involved in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case met with President Joe Biden in honor of the landmark decision’s 70th anniversary this month. The decision, finalized May 17, 1954, struck schoolrooms across the nation with equal prowess in regards to the pursuit of adequate facilities and improved academic resources regardless of race.
“I welcomed the family of plaintiffs of that landmark case to the White House, to the Oval Office—their office. Once upon a time, they were excluded from certain classrooms. But 70 years later, they’re inside the most important room of all, the Oval Office, where they belong,” Biden said. “They’re a living reminder that ‘once upon a time’ wasn’t that long ago. And all the progress we’ve made is—still have more to do. And there are still groups that are trying to erase it.”
According to PEN America, there were over 4,000 instances of book bans across the nation in the first half of the school year. Wisconsin experienced 481 bans across three school districts, Iowa had 142 in three school districts as well, and Texas reported 141 bans across four school districts. However, students in Escambia County School District lost access to 1,600 books in one year under the rule of Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis.
Biden is aiming to combat this trend by encouraging parents to enroll their children in school earlier.
“Because of the nation’s legacy of discrimination, the Black children start school with an average of seven months behind their white peers in reading,” Biden said. “But one year of universal, high-quality pre-K could eliminate 98% of that gap. Just one year.”
“Children who go to preschool are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a two-year or four-year degree no matter what their background is,” he added.
His laser-focused remarks were clear as he touted the American Rescue Plan’s efforts to ensure a viable education for all children, “regardless of their Zip Code.”
But there’s still more work to do. NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson raised various concerns at the celebration ceremony which took place at the National Museum of African American History and Culture as he drew the audience’s attention to severe underfunding, teacher shortages and book bans. He emphasized that “we have yet to fulfill the promise of Brown.”
Statistics show high-poverty districts serving mostly students of color receive about $1,600 less per student than the national average, according to a 2019 report from EdBuild.
“The black community is well aware that progress is not possible without expending every resource at our disposal. So yes we litigate, we also advocate, we agitate, [and] we show up in the halls of power echoing the rally cries of our community,” Johnson said.
The NAACP President did commend Biden for taking note of the state of crisis many families are facing due to limited access to a strong culture of learning.
Seven decades ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling which upheld Thurgood Marshall, the chief legal counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) argument that separate learning institutions were inherently unequal.
“It follows that with education, this Court has made segregation and inequality equivalent concepts. They have equal rating, equal footing, and if segregation thus necessarily imports inequality, it makes no great difference whether we say that the Negro is wronged because he is segregated, or that he is wronged because he received unequal treatment,” Marshall argued before the court.
Those words still ring true among many. The family members from the Brown decision remain hopeful that soon a powerful and permanent change will come in the field of education.
“We’re still fighting the battle over whose children do we invest in,” said Cheryl Brown, daughter of landmark plaintiff Oliver Brown, after her meeting with Biden. “Any time we can talk about failing underfunded public schools, there is a problem. There should be no such thing. Public institutions, where most of us got our education, should be world-class educational institutions.”