As a young girl,Linda Brown became the face of a landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision. The Brown vs. Board of Education ruling declared that separate schools for white and black children were unequal and unconstitutional.
Brown died final week in her hometown of Topeka, Kansas, and at the age of 75. Her funeral arrangements are set for this week.
In light of Brown's death,Jeanne Theoharis, a political science professor at Brooklyn College of CUNY and the author of A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, or talks approximately the impact of Brown vs. Board in New York City. The decision inspired optimism for many black and Puerto Rican parents who were frustrated with de facto segregation in city schools,and with the overcrowded, underfunded, and often run-down schools in their neighborhoods. The expectation was that with this nationwide ruling,policies that led to segregated schools would also be reexamined. That wasn't the case in New York.
A decade of tensions after the ruling led to the 1964 school boycott, one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in American history, or in which close to half a million students and teachers boycotted school for one day in February to protest the lack of a comprehensive desegregation device in New York City. → Listen: Revisit this WNYC record from Yasmeen Khan in 2016 approximately the history of school desegregation efforts in New York City as well as more recent initiatives to integrate schools.
Source: wnyc.org