Racism in Education - Question Five

 Describe the relevance of an issue embedded in the Civil War to modern America

How can you relate the Civil War to modern day America?                                       

            Throughout all this time from the Civil War to modern day, racism is still a huge issue in America. Race was a much bigger issue back then compared to today where there isn’t as much hate for African Americans, Latinos, ect. During the Civil war time in 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson case had taken place. The United States Supreme Court had made the argument to separate blacks from whites. This included different facilities, different schools, and anything that was public was to be separated by the “colored” and the whites. Homor Plessy, the American Plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court for the Plessy vs. Ferguson, who happens to be 1/8 black, was arrested for convicted of a violation of Louisiana’s racial segregation laws.

            His story began on the East Louisiana Railroad, when he had sat on the “whites only” passenger car. He was soon asked to move to the “colored” side of the car because of his 1/8^th of being black. He had told them he was 7/8^th’s white and that he refused to move seats. He was then immediately arrested. “Separate but equal” was apart of the standard doctrine in U.S law until the later case of the Brown vs. Board of Education.

            In 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education had come into the picture. The Brown family was an ordinary black family who thought that their children should have the same right to go to school and to get their education just like any other child. Their daughter was to walk 4miles to school every weekday because transportation was not an option for blacks. These children had to deal with not only no transportation, but a run-down school with leaks, the smell of sewage, and other problems that were to not be fixed unless they were to repair them themselves. The Brown Family had finally gotten tired of these unfair advantages and came forth to the court about these issues. The Court's decision being 9 to 0, had soon after stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

Jonathan Kozal a non-fiction writer, educator and activist is a great example for America’s modern day racism in education. His main belief was that children of all races should be able to get the same education as the whites were getting at the time. The condition of schools in white areas as apposed to those in primarily black areas was striking to Kozal. William Lloyd Garrison School for blacks was nearly waiting to be torn down. There had been four classes, the basement smelt with an awful stench, and windows fell out regularly. Charlestown High for the whites was a completely different story. Jonathan Kozal himself had talked to a teacher and what she had to say stuck him. “Day after day she would return to it, explaining to me the difference in her mind between discriminating against Negroes, and favoring the Jews”.