50 Years Later - Brown vs. Bd. of Education

This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision where the intentional barrier of segregation in our nation's schools was struck down. Fifty year later, sadly, the trend in many areas of the country - particularly in cities - is that segregation of another sort is alive and well.

Let me put it this way. It is more of an unintentional type of segregation but, nonetheless, it is segregation.

As jobs and industry have left parts of cities and various neighborhoods there has been a flight of the affluent to other areas. As that flight has taken place the poor, often black and brown, are left in the same location. Often these people don't have the resources to be successful. The schools are among the hardest hit institutions.

The segregation is very much driven by economics...industry relocation, low wages (federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hr.), low paying service jobs, run down communities, population flight, reduced land values, low tax base and more. These are real economic problems and are at the core of why black and brown are finding themselves, along with the rest of the American population, segregated from much of the rest of society.

Brown vs. the Board of Education must be reviewed and the tools put in place to end segregation in many of our nation's schools.

Dick