Remembering Brown v. Board of Education and My Date with Destiny

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States of America struck down the Plessy v. Ferguson case which permitted segregation based on race. Specifically, separating whites from Blacks in a type of class system that made Blacks second class citizens in the USA.

On this day, the first of two cases decided under Brown v. Topeka Board of Education was issued. The Court ruled “That to separate them [black children] from others of similar age and background would harm their minds and hearts in ways likely ever to be undone.”

When the Southern states did not obey this court order, the Supreme Court issued its second opinion in Brown on May 17, 1955, and ordered that the dual school systems should desegregate “with all deliberate speed.”

It would be two years before I reached school age. When I did my mom enrolled me in a segregated Black only school. By the time I reached the third grade, I had scored higher than any kid in the county, including kids in the segregated white only school, on the Iowa Basic Skills Test. My high test score prompted the school board to have my mom take me to see a psychologist.

After a series of test, the psychologist concluded that my test scores mystified the white school board because the school I attended was inferior to the white-only school in the county.

The public school system in my hometown, as most school districts in the country, interpreted Brown’s “with all deliberate speed,” to mean ten years…