WASHINGTON – On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a landmark case that changed the face of education and civil rights in America. But sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, some educators and civil rights advocates say not enough has changed.
“Living through the 60s, and when I started teaching, I honestly believed that when I started my career, we would see an end to those inequities. We have not,” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “And it is time for us to do something.”
Members of the Alliance to Reclaim our Schools, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, along with students and educators from around the country, gathered Tuesday to call attention to the issue of education inequality.
The rally began at the U.S. Supreme Court and ended at the Justice Department, with hundreds of people marching, chanting and holding signs reading, “Fund schools, not prisons,” “Don’t close public schools” and “Unequal is still unequal.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said the call to action to Congress wasn’t about racial segregation in the old-fashioned sense.
“It’s not about black and white schools,” Holmes. “It’s about schools that have resources and schools that do not.”
Roekel, the union leader, said, “This country does not care about all of its students. We need to change that and we need to change that now.”
Brown v. Board of Education, which was actually a combination of five separate cases concerning education and civil rights issues, ended racial segregation in public schools.