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Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
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Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
AND TYPE
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
RESTRICTION
001. fax
Jerry L. Malone to Laura Capps, Re: Wiley Branton (1 page)
9/22/97
P5
002. paper
Stephanie Gibson Branton; RE: Phone number [partial] (1 page)
09/23/1997
P6/b(6)
003. memo
Gary Orfleld to Michael Waldman; RE: Phone number [partial] (1
page)
09/19/1997
P6/b(6)
004. letter
Stuart F. Feldman to Michael Waldman; RE: Address and phone
numbers [partial] (1 page)
09/12/1997
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
OA/Box Number:
14538
FOLDER TITLE:
Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
2006-0469-F
dbl970
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�SEP 23 '37
05:57PM DOT/SECRETRRY OFFICE
p
4 / g
An unsung Hero
The Btory of the Central High c r i s i s has been told and
re-told. The Btory should also be told from the legal perspeccive
oC those who fought, t h i s battle i n the courts. The integration of
Central High School was not accomplished because of s o c i a l
activism, or pickets, or boycotts, or the kind heartedness of
people. The process was carried out i n the courts of t h i s country,
Wiley A. Branton, Sr. i n 1954 was a young lawyer, several years out
of University of Arkansas Law School -- where he was the third
black student to graduate
when Brown v. Board of Education was
decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
At that time he was state
chairman of the Legal Redress Committee of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In 1955 the school board proposed a "Plan of School Integration,"
which proposed integration take place in three slow phases. They
proposed beginning this process i n the school year '57/'58.
Leaders of the NAACP f e l t that this process was too gradual, and i n
January, 1956 Mr. Branton f i l e d a complaint i n U.S. D i s t r i c t Court
on behalf of the parents of 33 black children i n L i t t l e Rock that
the Court declare Arkansas desegregation laws unconstitutional.
And thus the f i r s t lawsuit was f i l e d i n what was to become known as
the Central High C r i s i s .
From 1956 through 1965 Wiley A. Branton served as chief counsel for
the black children and their parents who were involved i n the
integration of the L i t t l e Rock schools. His p a r t i c i p a t i o n , along
with that of Thurgood Marshall, would take him through complaints,
b r i e f s , responses, hearings and arguments i n the Pulaski County
Chancery Court, U.S. D i s t r i c t Court, to the United States Court of
Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mr. Branton met frequently with Oreo Cobb, The U.S. AtLorney, who
t r i e d to get him to recommend to the black parents that they not
send t h e i r children to Central High School. His response to them
was that they needed to uphold the Constitution of the United
States.
On September 23, 1957 when President Eisenhower responded to the
deteriorating a f f a i r s i n L i t t l e Rock by ordering troops into L i t t l e
Rock, Mr. Branton said, "My thoughts were, what have I started. I
had never f e l t so proud of my country. . . as I did on the day when
troops moved into L i t t l e Rock to protect the right of nine black
children to go to Central High School,"
Mr. Branton's involvement did not stop with t h e i r enrollment,
however. The L i t t l e Rock School Board continued to seek ways to
end integration.
In 1958 the school board f i l e d a p e t i t i o n to
remove the black students from Central High, and to get a delay of
two and a half years i n the implementation of integration. This
would eventually take Mr. Branton and Thurgood Marshall to the
United State Supreme Court, where they prevailed.
2
�Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
AND TYPE
002. paper
SUBJECT/TITLE
DATE
Stephanie Gibson Branton; RE: Phone number [partial] (1 page)
09/23/1997
RESTRICTION
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
OA/Box Number:
14538
FOLDER TITLE:
Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
2006-0469-F
dbl970
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Presidential Records Act -144 U.S.C. 2204(a))
Freedom of Information Act -15 U.S.C. 552(b)|
PI
P2
P3
P4
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b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
an agency 1(b)(2) of the FOIA)
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute 1(b)(3) of the FOIA)
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
information 1(b)(4) of the FOIA)
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy 1(b)(6) of the FOIA)
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes 1(b)(7) of the FOIA)
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
financial institutions |(b)(8) of the FOIA)
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
concerning wells |(bX9) of the FOIA)
National Security Classified Information 1(a)(1) of the PRA)
Relating to the appointment to Federal office 1(a)(2) of the PRA)
Release would violate a Federal statute 1(a)(3) of the PRA)
Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
financial information 1(a)(4) of the PRA)
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
and his advisors, or between such advisors |a)(S) of the PRA)
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy 1(a)(6) of the PRA|
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
of gift.
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
2201(3).
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
�SEP"23
05^57^TJOT/SECRETRRY CFFICE
"
P.5/9
Governor Faubus was not to be outdone. He ordered the L i t t l e Rock
schools closed, and they remained closed for the 'SB/'59 scliool
year. Final)y i n June of 1959, Mr. Branton won a ruling i n court
that the school closing laws were unconstitutional.
f
Mr. Branton was threatened with death and harassed for h i s pursuit
of c i v i l rights for a l l . i t was necessary for him to provide armed
guards to protect hie family as they slept, for nearly two years.
He was the recipient of hate mail from a l l over the country, some
simply addressed to "Nigger Lawyer, Pine Bluff, Arkansas."
For
the remainder of his l i f e he kept a photograph on h i s desk of a
cross that was burned on his family cemetery plot as a reminder of
Central High.
Mr. Branton'B service to people and to his country did not stop
with L i t t l e Rock and Central High school. He moved to Atlanta and
headed the Voter Education Project, which was responsible for the
registration of 600,000 black voters i n l i eouthem etates; and to
Washington, D.C. where he served as special assistant to two
attorneys general. Mr. Branton ended his i l l u a t r i o u s career as
dean of Howard University Law School, and as a partner i n the law
tirm Sidley and Austin, in Washington, D.C.
While a forceful advocate and an imprassive speaker, he was always
quiet, unassuming, and kind. As former Senator David tryor said on
the floor of the U.S. Senate following his death, -Hie dedication
to the principles of fairness and equality teaches us the
inyortance of commitment and tenacity. His quiet dynamisra teaches
us the importance of humility and selflessness."
And as Wiley Branton, Sr. himself said, which i s a most f i t t i n g
memorial to an unsung hero, " I am optimistic about the future and
the basic good i n mankind. Peace to a l l . "
Stephanie Gibson Branton
L i t t l e Rock, Arkansas
Clinton Library Photocopy
�0)
Dec. 5.92
SEP 23 '97 05:58PM DOT/SECRETRRY OFFICE
United Sutn
4 America
Vol. 13)
6:29P.<p:6/9
C n rsi n l K C M
o geso a E O
PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 1 0 1 ' * CONGRESS. FIRST StSSJON
WASHINGTON, THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1989
No. 30
TRIBUTE TO HOWARD UNIVTO8 ITT
LAW. SCHOOL DEAN
WILEY BRANTON
• Mr. PRTOR. Mr. PratdenL, when
asked ibout hi* 7e&n of service to the
civil rightsttovementind parUcul&rlr
to the IBS? cxisb »t litUe Rock C M i n l High School. Wiley Branton replied "I wai Just dolnr my Job." Such
• statement » u chincterlstlc of Mr.
Br&nton. vho.li remembered u t
hard-working, sincere mux Although
• gifted attorney, he v u Quiet and una&sunlng. It U hl» humility and desire
to alwaya put the go&b ot the dvt)
rights movement before, self vhieh
probably aoeoufits for that fsct the i
Wiley Bnnton was cot ttorr famous;
thanhewaa
j
Wiley Austin Brutos wa4 » native
. of Pine Bluff, AR, tnd a gnduite of
Arkarwu AM&N College, now the
Unlvenlty of Arkaasu at Pine Bluff.
. Bis career of service to thii oouniry
began as a member of the United
States Army la service during World
War n In the Fadflc. Returning home
after the war/. Mr. Branton began
teaching blacks how to complete an
election ballot Be was arrested tad
oonvlcted for these acUvltlea, but he
was not deterred.
.In I9ia» he enrolled at the Unlveni''
ty of Arkansas lav School, becoming
ena of the first blaeks to attend. After
his graduation In 19M, he Immediately i
Involved hlmaelf ID ' the' Uttle Rock
segregation battle. Despite numerous
threats to him and his fnmUy, WUey
Bran ton's ^nwrvntit tr,»^ to this struggle
was unwavering. ,
One of his greatest contrioutlons to
the aovomant was as chief counsel
repraseaUng the nine black students,
who were attempting to integrate
UtUe Keck Central. Prior to the
erents of 1957 which drew national attention to Little Rock, WDey Branton
was already busy la&hJonlng the circumstances suzroundlng the Little
Rock segregation problem as a catalyst for school Integration acroe* the
teuntry. After the initial suit filed by
the students was dlzml&sed, Branton,
with NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director Thurgood ManhaQ, appealed
the decision. The two argued that the
Wtohioc^ou Post
VTUX>^
Although the opportunity existed to
appeal the dlwnlrml to the Supreme
•Court* and such an appeal would have
brought WUey Branton to the visible
forefront of the movement, he chose
not to make the appeal. Be felt that
the risk that such a watered down
plan might become the national model
vas too great, and that the Importance
of the Integration movement must
take priority to any career or personal
benefits he might receive by making
the appeal.
WUey Branton was named execuUve
director of the Prwldent'e Council on
Boual Opportunity by Vice President
Hubert Humphrey In 1»6S. He served
as chief aide to the Vice President and
President • Johnson and traveled
throughout the South registering
blaeks to vote under the 1965 Vodng
Rights Act Mr. Branton also served as
special assistant to the Attorney Gen
eral In his capacity as executive director of the United Planning Oryanlzatlon. the Washington antlpoverty
sgeney. Mr. Branton became the
eighth dean of the Howa/d Unlvereliy
Law School In l « 7 . He had served as
chairman of the D.C. Judicial Nomhutioh Commission and as vice president
of the NAACP LegaJ Defense Pund.
Mr. Branton was also the recipient of
numerous awards and honors. Including recognition from the Washington
Bar Association, the Bar Association
of the District of Columbia, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil RlgbLs
Under the Law. and the D.C. Public Library.
Certaialy the life of WUey Brantoo
serves as a model for us all. His dedicaBon to the principles of fairness and
fiQUallty teaches us the importance of
commitment and,tenacity. His quiet:
dynamism teaches us the Importtujce !
of humility and selflessness. Ris distLnBulshed career In public service teaches us the Importance of duty and geni
eroeliy.
It is my hope that we never forget
the lessons of this life given for the
fceaeflt of othera. let us ivdedlcate
ourselres to those principles for which
WUey Branton lived and for which he
irtii always be remembered.*
Tfeceub&L 03,
^
�'SEP 23
P. 7/9
Ii wofad in Georgia during bis yean as
hud d the vastly important Voter Education
Project—his official duiis SI VEP were oecutive, but the ranks cf bbek attomeyB in the
South woe ao thio that he was frequently
pntaed Into service as a bwyer—at it had
worked back in his Mtive AHonaas, whert he
was lead ceunsel in the struggle to deaegre>
ptc little Rock's Central High School
Il was pan of Brantoa'a genius to pot to
sfleeiive use experiences thai might hs>*
left otifcti merely bitter. His education at
the University of Arkanaaa School of Law
(where he was thefirstblack student), his
subeequent work among white law officers
and court officials, and his Uend-lnto-thew o w r looks (he could easily have
o d ok
pasud for white) gave him a peculiar under,
standing of h w things worked in the Old.
o
South, He knew which buttons to push.
There are only two e*legorie» of people,
Bui as a member of an entrepreneurial
afriendremarked a few days igo a( (he
family In Pine Bluff, aj;B solid Southern
wake of Wiley A. Branion. There are those
Baptist and as afrequentvfctim of racism,
who didnl know Wiley at all, and there an
he also knew black people, a (act that helped
those who considered hun a close personal
. him to defaae countless petenda) duasters
friend." .
during his yean Is Waahingteo—as specUl
The Grsl category li bigger than, in
aaalsUBt to attorneys general Nicholas Katjustice, ll ought io be.feranion.w o died a
h
senhach and Ramsey Clark, as head of the
week age at age $5, waa an unsung giant of
United naming Organization, the city's anthe civil rights movement—unsung, at
tipoveny umbrella, and as deao of the How.
kast, la the natkmal press,
aid Uoivenity Law School
The people whose bravt heirts and
He was Everybody'sfavoritemaster of
braised beads made the sovement possible
cefemonies, always ready with a funny ato
knew Bnntoa well. He was the clever
iy usually with himself as the butt. Thouyoung lawyer they counted on to get them
sands of people w o thought they knew him
h
out ot choce bruul aouthern
His tools;
well learned, in the week following his death
enormeus integrity, a keen grstp of the law,
from a hraxt attack, things about Branton thai
an intimate knowledge of the South (includthey had never IOOWK M weekly visits, with
' ing the racial ouartcec that varied from state
hb wife Ludlk, to nursing homes to call oo
to slate, and even from town to town wilhin
farmer dients or their widows; his subacripa given state), and, always, a wonderful
tions lo Arkansas pspen that alba*d Um to.
sense of humor.
keep 19 with the aecDRipbhnieoa of his:
One of his storied ploys (recounted m the
"hacse boys" and choir duUrca and to n d
J967 hook, -Climbing Jacob's. Ladder,' by
than omgrstulaasy aeaa^ ba ancr-a^.
Pat Walters and Reese Cleghom) was to
•uagod grief over tltt death, b 19S6, of his
phone the backwoods sheriff w o was holdh*
daughter, TOOL
ing civil rights activists on one trumped-up
But Brenton's special gift was his friend'
charge or another and pretend to be a dimly
ship. People whoever.b(M hm argue
remembered friend.
case or leaeh a class or rasotve a ^spuie,
•Sheriff, this is old Wiley Branton up here
cowited hhs i Ipedsl frkal He bad a way of .
fci AUanls." he would say in his best cracker . bringing you mside. making you he! that bo ~
eecenl. "Lawyer, you know. Been d w
o n
took gaiuine pleasure m having yui wa^ 'm
there a few times.* The sheriff, not wishing . Tte peosfc who aevtr kae* seed to be 3
lo offend, would pretend to recall their
remioded of the garjahfaia contribuboro^I
g^tifrj thereby aettiqg Ueiself up for
• too seldom nUed,tothe cowep cf tb* C M P
Brantoo'i next move.
rights movemeat aad ef Amerfaan Juris pr*^
•Look, you got a eeuple of m boys d w
y
o n
dewcBtil ft h for Wfley Bnatoa'a k>ad-J
there—one of their awthers works for
nas, Mi g o fellowship sad hia Wedib**
od
ne—and h'd shore be a mighty big favor to
warmth tut I will remember him—1 and a
me if you couldfcitne have them.'
.•4ew uousaod othe^'dose perioral friends.".
l^//igm Raspberry
A Few
Thousand
Qose Friends
T
9
�"SEP 23 '97
..
.
05:59PI1 DOT/SECRETflRY OFFICE
KEN ADELMAN
Steadfast
vision of
rights
O
r the ud passings oT 1988,
the death of WUey Branton ranks among the saddest, yet least noticed. His
coining of age launched a revolution.
His December death ended an ere.
I was lucky to speak at length with
this giant of the civil rights rnowement for Wsshingtonlan magazine.
Quite s yam-spinner, Mr Branton
was different from what I had expected
He didn't come across as a guntoter. ihough for years he wore a .45
en his hip and hid a shotgun in his
car. He didn't seem like a lawbreaker, though he Was convicted of
breaking the law: He didrit act like a
revolutionary,
thouth he helped
spark one of the
greatest revolutions in history,
thai f o r c i v i l
righis.
One of (he earliesi sparks came
in 1956 on the l " f Branton
stairs of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Mr Branton. bom in
Arkansas, filed the firsl lawsuit to
desegregate those schools. All heU
broke loose when the "Little Rock
Nine" came to class. A cross burned
on Mr. Bran ion's lawn, since he was
defending the black kids.
Then, in 1961. Mr. Branton represented the first "freedom riders'
in Jackson. Miss. He had e move
with care Local whites didnt care
for a black lawyer defending black
"troublemakers." So Mr. Branton
Scotch-taped his ear hood to detect
if his engine had been wired for explosives. And he carried a gun.
Major civil rights leaden, especially the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr.. asked Mr. Branton to launch the
Voter Education Project, which
helped register more than 600,000
black voters in 11 states. Mr Branton
weet-ialked Southern sheriffs into
{leasing his brethren from their
jails, including Andrew Young when
he was locked away in a Wmona.
Miss. cell.
1
w ,
These were the quiet years, before
1962. when Life magazine included
Mr Branton among its "Red Hot
100" most promising young Americans. He uent on to become executive Secretary to President Lyndon
B. Johnson's Council on Equal Op-
porrunfry. and later special assistant
to two anomey generals.
When in 1987. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People honored Mr. Branton,
Vernon Jordan told of his "incredible
career of leading, caring, shanng.
daring, defending and protecting the
least of our brothers and sisters."
' Bui Mr. Brantoni own words stir
. most. Despite burnt crosses and injustices, he Could "attest to the
friendliness and respect people have
had between the races, even under
segregation laws."
lb Mr Branton, America wis al'
ways special. "In other countries, w
achieve the gains that blacks have
achieved would require armed rebellion There has been an amazing
change, and it's taken place rather
quickly. I really did not expect mis
much progress. Yet I hoped for
•more,"
Mr Branton grew up in the segregated South, having (o use the movie
theater "side door and go up in a
balcony. I couldn't check a. book out
of a library. 1 couldnl even enter the
public library.'
"Al times, life could be very
humiliaOng. One day when I was just
- a kid, a customer of our taxicab company needed change for a $20 bill,
The driver astced me to go across the
, street to the train station and get
change. I went In the black waiting
room and walked up io the counter.
This fellow named Coleman said.
'Nigger, where did you get S20
from?' I made him know that 1 was
Leo Branton's son. He said. 'Oh.
yeah, you can get change- Leo's a
good ruggexf
"I've never fbrgotten thai. I i was
supposed to be complimentary to
say that my father was a good niggerMr. Bran ion's turning point came
while serving in World War II. " I was
appalled by the segregation and discrimination In the Arttiy. Here I am,
ready to go overseas to fight for democracy, and I'm being segregated.
A black soldier could not go lo the
main PX without getting a note from
the commanding officer"
Sometimes, enemy soldiers were
favored over American troops. Mr.
Branton, along with other black
guards, once helped 'transport
some luliari prisoners of war from
Florida to Leavenworth. We got to
Union Station in St. Louis and were
told the Italian prisoners could eat in
the main dining room, but that we.
tne American guards, couldnl.
P. 8/9
" I was very angry. When j got out
of the Army in early "46, 1 thought
' I ve been o^er there fighting io help
make the world safe for democracy
By God, Tm going home to see if J
can't help make Arkansas sole for
democracy?"
He did, and more. He helped make
America safe for democracy.
And the spark he helped to lemte
still bums.
Ken Adelman is a nationuliv syndicated columnist.
�SI
7V/ii N/iW YOh'K TIMES O B i T U A R J E S
e
n
\
W7/ey Branton, Early Desegregation Lawyer, Dies
By SUSAN H E L L E R ANDERSON
Wiley A. BraniOQ. U u principal lawyer in the civil rtghia case (Mi deseftresaied liw public schools in Utile
Rock, Art., to 1657, died al a k e e n aiteck Thursday al his hoetefarWaahlnflton. He was U y e a n old.
Mr. firanun, aiforrner deen of Howard University Lew Sdtool, also
heeded e voter reBlMraUon drive
among blacks In the Souih In ihe IMtTs.
At A c Unte ol deeih, Mr. Brwuon was e
noer in the Vaihkigum office el SMi a AosOni a CMcags law firm.
"He devoted his em I n lile i a f IgMng
for Ma own people." said Jua<lce Thurgood Marshall of (he United S i e u e Suptwme Court. The I wo worked logether
In Little Reck, when both were oounaels
10 ihe Naslonal AaaaclailcM lor the AdveooemeBl ol Colored
"He wea'me of my cloeeM frtendt,"
^uatloe Marshall aeld. "He was a greei
duy. e warm person who believed In
"people end believed In what wee rtghi."
While in prWaleprectlce, Mi. Br anion
continued work wlihool fee for cWU
rights orgeoUMkme "He spent noei of
him Umc working for tree," Juolkw
Marshall said.
After Mr. Br an I on achieved prominence with hi* victory m Uuie Rock,
wtere resislsnoe lo deacgrcgalkm led
President EUeniiower lo call out Fe6-
G
P
CD
\
IO
Q
Q_
Q
rvj
QU
erel troops U en/orce ihe court mlinc.
>
he was chosen by ihe naiKMi't clvd
rights leaden lo direct the- Voter
Education Projeci in Alien ia, a oooperailve effon to register black vwerv
Under his leaderslup. more ihoe
600,000 black voiere were reglstcml
frort )982lolOS3,
lonvey Creneral and executive sccre>
lary ol Presidem" Johnson's Council oo
Kqual Oppowuniry. In 1967 he became
esecuiivc director of Ihe United Planning OrganiLMioe. the District of Cotumbia's antijxnreny agovcy. Two
years later, he direcied the social action progrem of the Alliance for Labor
Acl ion. He lefi that joh M practice law
He also represciiicd ihe Freedom In Washington.
RWlen, volunteen In the veglairaltion
From itfg to IMli. Mr. firanton was
drive, who were (etied In the South.
WhileatfclressMiga rally In Greenwood. dean of Howard Uiuvereity Lew
MlU., where he was aeleruting sis School. When he look ihe Job, the uni(elled Freedom Riders. Mr. Branion versi I y w a* (h reeiened by Ihe dec lining
liltrkieed thai he w»i ihe greei-gran^- success of Its graduates Is passing bar
e m of Greenwood Leflore, for whom CMS n IIU lions, loss of accrediiaiion end
Ihe ctiy t i Greenwood, and tu counly. a disftrunited faculty. When be left, his
Leflore, were named, Mr. Bramoa's colleagues cred!led him wlih ratorlng
ancestor, the son of a Choctaw Indian standards and e ceruin anouni of
prinoeea, wea duel of ihe Choc law ne- stability
M r Br anion received ihe firsl Mar- •Wiley,
Boni In Pine Bhiff. Ark.. Mr. Mrantoe nn Lulher Kion Jr. Leadership Award
Bredueled fntm a branch of ihe Uni- Injm (he Washington Public l i b r a r y
verally ol Arttansa* el Pint Bluff arvd| this year. He was named l-awyrei of the sona R<
the Oniverslly ol Arkansas L a v - Year by die Bar Atsoctsiiofl of the Dis- J * , of '
School He practiced law in Ptne Bluff uicl at Cuhimbia lo ISM and feceived Wytene
end defended many blacks in crimintl the Whitney North Seymour Award M.J, an.
case*, a period In which Mr. Braniofi from i t * Utwyers Commltiee lor Civil Oebra I
was a frequenl largei of threeienmg Rights Under Law in ISO?.
(wn bro
telephane calls aad a ernes burning on
He Was • director al the NAACP Calif, ai
hUbwA.
Legal Defense and £duc«fioaal Fond J u l * Br
In IBM he moved to Aliania. wherr inc., the Winthrop Rockefeller Kounda- and 1 2 B
The ti
he became head of ihe Voter Educal ion (ion. Africere and the Lawyers ComA.M. al
ProjecL From I K S to \967, he was spe miiieelor Civil Rights.
clal aasUianl ie the United itaiec Al
Surviving are his wife, Lucille; two Waahuv
�. piouicms, but it has insisted that diligent attention to solving these would not require a prolonged period. In its section
on administrative problems the Court enumerates those which the courts
may consider. The time alleged to be required is subject to the burden-ofproof stipulation in the opinion. The nature of the solution of each problem is subject to the "good faith" and "constitutional principles" stipulation. All proposals are subject to challenges in the courts. . . .
In the overwhelming majority of instances it can be expected that compliance without legal action will be the rule, perhaps grudgingly and
reluctantly in some areas, but compliance, nevertheless. . . .
Armed with the powers embodied in the language of the Court's opinion,
we look confidently toward the future. We stand ready with qualified
experts in public education and community organizations to cooperate with
any and all school boards willing to work toward desegregation.
We always realized that there are those who would defy the ruling and
others who would drag their feet no matter what language the Supreme
Court used. We now have the weapons to make them accept the highest
court's affirmation of true American principles. . . .
2.7 Resistance lo Brown was widespread in the South. As of the beginning of
the 1957 school year only a small number of schools had complied with the
decision. Moreover, organized defiance, both through legal and extra-legal
channels, was on the rise (see chapter twelve). In Uttle Rode, Arkansas, however, there was reason to be optimistic. The school board had passed a plan for
gradually desegregating the schools, beginning with the admission of nine carefully selected students to Uttle Rock's Central High. Yet, shortly before the
school year commenced, opposition emerged. Most importantly. Governor
Orval Faubus, heretofore a moderate, voiced his opposition and while mobs
assembled in town to stop the plan from being implemented. The following piece,
an interview with Elizabeth Eckford, provides a vivid sense of the meaning of
those mobs.
2.7 Elizabeth Eckford, "The First Day: Little Rock, 1957," in
Growing Up Southern: Southern Exposure Looks at Childhood, Then
and Now, ed. by Chris Mayfield (New York: Random House, 1981),
pp. 258-261.
That night I was so excited I couldn't sleep. The next moming I was
about the first one up. While I was pressing my black-and-white dress—I
had made it to wear on the first day of school—my little brother turned on
the TV set. They started telling about a large crowd gathered at the
school. The man on TV said he wondered if we were going to show up
that morning. . . .
Before I left home Mother called us into the living room. She said we
should have a word of prayer. Then I caught the bus and got off a block
from the school. I saw a large crowd of people standing across the street
from the soldiers guarding Central. As I walked on, the crowd suddenly
got very quiet. Superintendent Blossom told us to enter by the front door.
I looked at all the people and thought, "Maybe I will be safer if I walk
down the block to the front entrance behind the guards."
At the comer I tried to pass through the long line of guards around the
school so as to enter the grounds behind them. One of the guards pointed
across the street. So I pointed in the same direction and asked whether he
meant for me to cross the street and walk down. He nodded "yes." So, I
walked across the street conscious of the crowd that stoo4 there, but they
moved away from me.
For a moment all 1 could hear was the shuffling of their feet*^ -.
someone shouted, "Here she comes, get ready!" I moved away from tne
crowd on the sidewalk and into the street. If the mob came at me I could
then cross back over so the guards could protect me.
The crowd moved in closer and then began to follow me, calling me
names. I still wasn't afraid. Just a little bit nervous. Then my knees
started to shake all of a sudden and I wondered whether I could make it to
the center entrance a block away. It was the longest block I ever walked in
my whole life.
Even so, I still wasn't too scared because all the time I kept thinking
that the guards would protect me.
When I got in front of the school, I went up to a guard again. But this
time he just looked straight ahead and didn't move to let me pass him. I
didn't know what to do. Then I looked and saw that the path leading to the
front entrance was a little further ahead. So I walked until I was right in
front of the path to the front door.
I stood looking at the school—it looked so big! Just then the guards let
some white students through.
The crowd was quiet. I guess they were waiting to see what was going
to happen. When I was able to steady my knees.. I walked up to the guard
who had let the white students in. He too didn't move. When I tried to
squeeze past him, he raised his bayonet and then the other guards moved
in and they raised their bayonets.
They glared at me with a mean look and I was very frightened and
didn't know what to do. 1 turned around and the crowd came toward me.
iilfe.;;:
v..
• "sf."'
V.) U.'v
�46
HISTORY OF THE MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
They moved closer and closer. Somebody started yelling, "Lynch her!
Lynch her!"
I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the mob—someone who
maybe would help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a
kind face, but when I looked at her again she spat on me.
They came closer, shouting, "No nigger bitch is going to get in our
school! Get out of here!"
I turned back to the guards but their faces told me I wouldn't get any
help from them. Then I looked down the block and saw a bench at the bus
stop. I thought, " I f I can only get there I will be safe." I don't know why
the bench seemed a safe place to me, but I started walking toward it. I
tried to close my mind to what they were shouting, and kept saying to
myself, " I f I can only make it to the bench I will be safe."
When I finally got there, I don't think I could have gone another step. I
sat down and the mob crowded up and began shouting all over again.
Someone hollered, "Drag her over to this tree! Let's take care of that
nigger." Just then a white man sat down beside me, put his arm around
me and patted my shoulder. He raised my chin and said, "Don't let them
see you cry."
2.8 Faubus' decision to defy Brown placed President Dwight D. Eisenhower
in a position he had sought to avoid through most of his tenure as president.
Eisenhower had refrained from taking a public stance on Brown except to
declare that it was the law of the land. He favored gradual rather than radical
race reforms. Personally he felt segregation was wrong but he sympathized with
Southerners who worried about the disorder that they believed would arise with
desegregation. Faubus' decision to use state troops to block the admission of the
Little Rock nine compelled Eisenhower to intervene. In an address to the American people, he explained his decision to send the National Guard to Uttle Rock.
Eisenhower proclaimed that the legitimacy of the federal court and American
system of law was at stake; he added that the incident was damaging America's
reputation abroad.
2.8 President Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Address on Little Rock,"
September 25, 1957.
My fellow citizens. . . . I must speak to you about the serious situation
that has arisen in Little Rock. . . . In that city, under the leadership of
demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs have deliberately prevented the
carrying out of proper orders from a federal court. Local authorities have
not eliminated that violent opposition and, under the law, I yesterday
issued a proclamation calling upon the mob to disperse.
DESEGREGATING THE SCHOOLS
47
This morning the mob again gathered in front of the Central High
School of Little Rock, obviously for the purpose of again preventing the
carrying out of the court's order relating to the admission of Negro children to that school.
Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes
necessary for the executive branch of the federal government to use its
powers and authority to uphold federal courts, the President's responsibility is inescapable.
In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive
Order directing the use of troops under federal authority to aid in th^
execution of federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary
when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.
It is important that the reasons for my action be understood by all our
citizens.
As you know, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that
separate public educational facilities for the races are inherendy unequal
and therefore compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional. . ..
During the past several years, many communities in our southern states
have instituted public school plans for gradual progress in the enrollment
and attendance of school children of all races in order to bring themselves
into compliance with the law of the land.
They thus demonstrated to the world that we are a nation in which laws,
not men, are supreme. . . .
Now let me make it very clear that federal troops are not being used to
relieve local and state authorities of their primary duty to preserve the
peace and order of the community
The proper use of the powers of the Executive Branch to enforce the
orders of a federal court is limited to extraordinary and compelling circumstances. Manifestly, such an extreme situation has been created in
Little Rock. This challenge must be met and with such measures as will
preserve to the people as a whole their lawfully protected rights in a
climate permitting their free and fair exercise.
The overwhelming majority of our people in every section of the country are united in their respect for observance of the law—even in those
cases where they may disagree with that law. . . .
A foundation of our American way of life is our national respect for law.
In the South, as elsewhere, citizens are keenly aware of the tremendous
disservice that has been done to the people of Arkansas in the eyes of the
nation, and that has been done to the nation in the eyes of the world.
�48
HISTORY OF THE MODERN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
At a time when we face grave situations abroad because of the hatred that
communism bears toward a system of government based on human rights,
it would be difficult to exaggerate the harm that is being done to the
prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the
world.
Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to
misrepresent our whole nation. We are portrayed as a violator of those
standards of conduct which the people of the world united to proclaim in
the Charter of the United Nations. There they affirmed "faith in fundamental human rights" and "in the dignity and worth of the human person" and
they did so "without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion."
And so, with deep confidence, I call upon the citizens of the State of
Arkansas to assist in bringing an immediate end to all interference with
the law and its processes. If resistance to the federal court orders ceases at
once, the further presence of federal troops will be unnecessary and the
City of Litde Rock will return to its normal habits of peace and order and
a blot upon the fair name and high honor of our nation in the world will be
removed.
Thus will be restored the image of America and all its parts as one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
2.9 The presence of federal troops in Uttle Rock allowed the students to
attend Central High, although one of them, Minnie Jean Brown, was expelled
after she threw a bowl of chili on a white boy, who along with other whites, had
been harassing her. On the last day of the school year, Emest Green, the only
senior of the Uttle Rock Nine, became thefirstblack student to graduate from
Central High School, marking a victory for himself, the Uttle Rock Nine, and the
NAACP. Yet the victory proved short-lived for blacks in Uttle Rock and nationwide. Rather than desegregate, Uttle Rock and other school districts, including
Prince Edward County, Virginia, closed their schools.
Nonetheless, blacks refused to retreat. The NAACP continued tofileone suit
after another, at considerable expense. Black leaders and their allies, including
liberal politicians from both political parties, such as Jacob Javits and Hubert
Humphrey, demanded compliance with the law. More importantly, lesser-known
individuals stepped forward to demand admittance to all-white institutions,
knowing that they risked their lives in doing so. Among those to do so was James
Meredith, a veteran of the Korean War and a native of the state of Mississippi.
When the University of Mississippi refused to admit Meredith, the NAACP took
his case to court and, as in Uttle Rock, obtained a court order compelling the
school to comply with Brown. Once again the governor of the state, this time
Ross Bamett, defied the court's command, which in mm compelled a reluctant
\ : - - 7- - - ' ^
DESEGREGATING THE SCHOOLS 49
president, this time John F. Kennedy, to intervene. Throughout the ordeal,
Meredith refused to withdraw his application, insisting that he had the same
right as all other citizens to a college education.
2.9 James Meredith, "Statement," in Three Years in Mississippi
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), pp. 200-214.
In this time of crisis, I feel it appropriate for me to clarify my position «>
•
as to my intention, my objectives, my hopes, and my desires.
For several months I have been involved in a struggle to gain admission
to the University of Mississippi.
There are those in my state who oppose me in my efforts to obtain f n
education in the schools of my state. They do this because I am a Negro,
and Negroes are not allowed to attend certain schools in my stole. The
schools that we are forbidden to attend are the only ones in the state that
offer the training which I wish to receive. Consequently, those who
oppose me are saying to me, we have given you what we want you to have
and no more. And if you want more than we have given you, then you go
to some other state or some other country and get your training.
What logic is it that concludes that a citizen of one state must be
required to go to another state to receive the educational training that is
normally and ordinarily offered and received by other citizens of that
state? Further, what justification can there possibly be for one state to
accept the responsibility for educating the citizens of another state when
the training is offered to other citizens in the home state?
We have a dilemma. It is a fact that the Negroes of Mississippi are
effectively not first-class citizens. 1 feel that every citizen should be a
first-class citizen and should be allowed to develop his talents on a free,
equal, and competitive basis. I think this is fair and that it infringes on the
rights and privileges of no one. Certainly to be denied this opportunity is a
violation of my rights as a citizen of the United States and the state of
Mississippi.
The future of the United States of America, the future of the South, the
future of Mississippi, and future of the Negro rests on the decision of
whether or not the Negro citizen is to be allowed to receive an education
in his own state. If a state is permitted to arbitrarily deny any right that is
so basic to the American way of life to any citizen, then democracy is a
failure.
I dream of a day when Negroes in Mississippi can live in decency and
respect and do so without fear of intimidation and bodily harm, of receiving personal embarrassment, and with an assurance of equal justice under
the law. . . .
�50
VOICES OF FREEDOM
up," Minnie had taken this chili, dumped it on this dude's head
There was just absolute silence in the place. And then the help,
all black, broke into applause. And the other white kids there
didn't know what to do. I mean it was the first time that anybody,
I'm sure, had seen somebody black retaliate in that sense. It was
a good feeling to see that happen, to be able to let them know thai
we were capable of taking care of ourselves. With that the school
board suspended Minnie. Part of it was the attitude at that time,
which was somehow we were supposed to be so stoic that we
weren't to retaliate to any of this. Finally, after the suspension,
they moved to remove her from school, and Minnie went to
school in New York, finished up the other semester outside of
Little Rock.
Marcia Webb Lecky was secretary of the senior class.
MARCIA W E B B LECKY
When I think of my senior year at Central, most of my memories
are the real f u n ones—homecoming, cheerleading, research papers, the dances, the people you dated, slumber parties, all the
fun things that seventeen-year-olds should be doing. And even
though we were making headlines, it was a fun year.
You would see the soldiers in the hall. You would see them
at cheerleader practice, or gym, or football games, but they never
bothered us, and we thought they were there because Faubus was
causing problems, and I think most of us were glad when the
resolution came with President Eisenhower taking charge.
I didn't see much of the black kids. If you didn't have any
classes with any of the nine, one really didn't know if they were
in the building or not. And the school is so large. Occasionally I
would see Ernie Green. He is the only one of the Little Rock Nine
who was a senior, and in my class, and the one that I knew by
name. I would say, "Hi, Ernie," but that was it. One didn't have
time to stand around the hall and talk to anyone. But it would be
the smile, and the "Hi." Now I can see it from their perspective,
not knowing what was going on in the minds of the other
students, and yet we did not go enough out of our way to seek
them out. I'm sure those students had some teachers that they
felt comfortable with, and I know that Mrs. Bates offered a lot of
T H E LITTLE ROCK CRISIS. 1957-1958
51
support for them, but there were a lot of us who could have
helped, and I wish we had.
ERNEST GREEN
Graduation was the end of May. I had been there nine months
and had thought that all I needed to do was to graduate just eet
out of there so that it would be impossible for white people to
say that nobody black had ever graduated from Central High
School. I was having difficulty with one course, it was a physics
course, and almost up to the last minute I didn't know whether I
was going to complete it successfully so that I would get out of
there. But as things were, I got a fairly decent grade out of it
The interesting thing about graduation was, being the only
senior, I'd given up ail the graduation activity that had gone on
in the black high school-the school play and the prom and all
of those kinds of things. Sometimes because of not having that
activity, I would really feel isolated, because I wasn't going to
Central High Schools prom, and I wasn't going to be invited to
be in the school play at Central. But all of the black students at
Horace Mann, which was the school that I would have graduated
Irom, invited me to all the activities, included me in all of it really
made me feel a super part of i t . So that I had the best of both
worlds. I had cracked this white institution and stiH had all of my
hiends who were supersupportive of what I was trying to do
At the graduation ceremony, one of the guests was Martin
Luther King. He was speaking in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, at the
back college there. And he came up to sit with my mother and
Mrs. Bates and a couple of other friends in the audience. I figured
aU I had to do was walk across that big huge stage, which looked
the length of a football field. I'm sure it was very small, but that
night before I had to walk up and receive my diploma it looked
very imposing. I kept telling myself I just can't trip, with all those
cameras watching me. But I knew that once I got as far as that
principal and received that diploma, that I had cracked the wall
There were a lot of claps for the students. They talked about
who had received scholarships, who was an honor student, and
lU that as they called the names off. When they called my name
there was nothing, just the name, and there was this eerie silence
Sobody clapped. But I figured they didn't have to. Because after
�/ 7 2
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
prosperous African American families, the foundation of financial security. (There was, for example, the speculative purchase for the considerable sum o f $2,500 of lots in the town of Ogden, west o f Rochester, in
1865.)
Douglass's new house stood in "a neighborless place, its only roadway
at that time the private road leading to his door." In time, Douglass
cleared a wide area, which gave him a view o f Rochester and allowed
him to put in fruit trees. The farm's roadway connected with the dirt road
leading into the city from the southeast, and soon the Douglass place
became a reliable stop for fugitive slaves making their way to Canada.
There, in the house or the barn, runaways could spend their last night
in the slaveholding United States or wait to be taken by wagon downtown after dark, to be hidden in E. C. Williams's sail loft or Isaac Post's
barn on Sophia Street; "the most we ever had at one time was twelve,"
Amy Post recalled: She once estimated that 150 fugitives a year moved
through Rochester. If they stayed at the Douglasses', a note, often carried
by one of the Douglass children, went to Isaac Post or Samuel Porter—
"Two weary people here; need transportation in the moming." The
signature, in a perfunctory effort at disguise, would be "D.F." At dawn,
a wagon would take the refugees to town, where they would be led down
below the lower falls and put aboard a boat headed for Canada and safety.
As Ann Smith and Julia Griffiths made their way out of the city on
the St. Paul Road that summer day, Julia reported that Frederick was
working hard on a speech, and pronounced it excellent. Douglass was
writing the speech in response to an invitation from the Rochester Ladies'
Anti-Slavery Society to give an oration in Corinthian Hall on the Fourth
oCjuly. He agreed to speak, but not on that date; on the day after
Independence Day, staunchly antislavery Rochester crowded into the hall
to hearjarhat came to be known as Frederick Douglass's Fifth of July
Speed! "This Fourth [of] July," he reminded his audience, "is yours, not
mine/You may rejoice, / must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the
grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in
joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you
mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?"
But he did speak. "Would you have me argue that man is entitled to
his liberty? that he is the rightful owner o f his own body? You have
already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a
question for Republicans?" Then, expounding on the republican philosophy of those who had not only declared independence but also constituted
a nation, Douglass proclaimed, "Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in
respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be
so ruinously imposed upon, as that o f the pro-slavery character of the
25 BUFFALO STREET
/ 73
Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is no warrant, license, nor
sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted,
the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT."
He surprised an audience used to speaking of "chains" as characteristic
of slavery by stating, "The 4th of July is the first great fact in your
nation's history—the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped
destiny." With a bold mixing of metaphors, he mused on how that day's
philosophy had been ignored, and offered only an Ishmael's hope of
survival: "From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening
clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance,
disclose to the leeward huge forms o f flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that
chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day—cling <o it, and to its
principles, with the grasp o f a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight."
It was in the Fifth of July Speech that Douglass not only gave his
searing prophecy of what the nation's fate would be in less than a decade,
and what would ensue in the decades toward the end of his life, but also
pointed a haunting finger at our own day, a century after his death:
"There is consolation in the thought that^ericaisvoung. Great streams
arelujfeasily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They
may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land,
refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They
may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves,
the accumulated wealth o f years o f toil and hardship. They, however,
gradually flow back to the sam» old channel, and flow on as serenely as
ever. But, while the river ma'^^ot be turned aside, it may dry up, and
leave nothing behind but the 'ithered branch, and the unsightly rock,
to howl in abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with
rivers so with nations."
When the long, learned, carefully crafted speech was over and Douglass took his seat, the audience rose to cheer him. His Rochester neighbors
had heard perhaps the greatest antislavery oration ever given.
The Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society was one of the most active
in the movement. To raise money for the cause, Julia Griffiths, its secretary, in 1852 hit on an excellent scheme. She asked celebrities to submit
antislavery statements, and these were printed, each followed by a facsimile of its author's signature, in a book called Autographs for Freedom. Thenwere to be two volumes, to double the profits. In volume one, William
Henry Seward led o f f , followed by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Most of the
entries were, like John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, brief, but Douglass's
contribution was a sixty-five-page novella called "The Heroic Slave.'
This, his only attempt at fiction, is a curious mirror of his Narrative oj
�PRESERVATION
1/1
�09/23/1997 08:36
6013651713
PRICHARD M R I
ORS
P G 02
AE
•
Paulkner Quotes
"Southerners do not study their past; they absorb i t . "
intruder in the Dust
"To l i v e anywhere i n the world of A.D. 1955 and be against
equality because of race or color i s like living i n Alaska and
being against snow."
1955 speach in Memphis
I f we could have just a generation of children, we would not have
a race problem.
Paraphrased from The Unvanquiahed
"We speaJc against the day when the Southern people who w i l l r e s i s t
to the l a s t these inevitable changes in social relations, w i l l ,
when they have been forced to accept what they at one time might
have accepted with dignity and good w i l l , say, 'Why didn't someone
t e l l us this before? T e l l us this in time?'"
Willie Morris on Faulkner and race:
His work i t s e l f abounds in rich truths and complexities such as
the severance the society i n f l i c t s on two young boys, close
comrade—one white and one black—who are eventually forced by
that society to turn away from each other.
I s i t not the great tortured labyrinth of his work, i t s power and
nuance and s p i r i t and a l l which reside in the corpus of i t , that
helped clear away much of the debris of r a c i a l misunderstanding?
�Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
AND TYPE
003. memo
DATE
SUBJECITriTLE
Gary Orfield to Michael Waldman; RE: Phone number [partial] (1
page)
09/19/1997
RESTRICTION
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
OA/Box Number:
14538
FOLDER TITLE:
Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
2006-0469-F
dbl970
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�S E P - 1 9 - 9 7 I S . 2 6 FROM.APSP HCSE
10.6174963096
PACE
TO: MICHAEL WALDMANy/^ '
^
FROM: GARY ORFIELD K11A96-4%7A HOME I f j j ^ l M l EMAIL ORFIELGA@ L
HUGSE1.HARVARD.EDU
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Some possible points for the President's speech:
Many people think that we are back to the
Situation before the Brown decision in the South.
That is wrong. The South is still substantially
More integrated than most parts of the U.S.
And relatively few desegregation plans have
Been dismantled so far (though the include
Some big cities)
The small towns and rural areas in the country
Are highly integrated
Public support for integrated schools is very high
Among all races
Segregated schools are not only segregated by
Race but minority schools are also 16 times
More likely to be segregated by poverty and
All its related problems
There has been veiy little attention to the isolation of
Latino children in high poverty schools and those
who complain that they are not learning English
fast enough need to recognize that language
Is learned much better when it can be used
constantly with other native speakers.
Housing is an underlying issue and must be part of :
long term cure. Leadership of Cisneros in
moving to opportunity
Busing is not the issue. Most desegregation plains now
make very strong use of choice and magnets and
Clinton Library Photocopy
�.SEP-19-97
1 9 . 2 5 FROM.APSP
HCSE
10.6174963095
if we think it through carefully we can have more
choice and more innovation as well as continuing
desegregation.
Minority families seek desegregation primarily for
educational opportunity, and in a proper
plan there must be more than just mixing—
We need to invest in the educational reform
of our interracial schools.
Successful interracial experience opens better
opportunities in an increasingly interracial
society and can provide important gains for
whites as well as minorities. One of the most
important assets of the country in the future
will be people who know how to function and
lead with genuine understanding across
racial and ethnic lines.
PAGE
2/2
�PRICHARD MORRIS
p. 02
09/23/1997 08^36
TO THK Korro*. or THE blew York Timw*
Tb« tn^edy of Little Rock a th*t it JIM st I«c
bwu^s out into the light Afretwhich w« knew WM
there but which, uatil it WM drtjjged forcibly out o( hiding, we could ignore by psretenduig it wun't there' This
i» thefcettluit white people tnd Negnm do not Iik« and
tmsc each other, and perhaps never can.
But maybe thU ia not a,tragedy after all. Now, by hiving thM fact out where wt will have to look at it and
tecogsiae it and accept it. piaybe we can rcalitc that it il
not importantforut to like and tmt each other. That it
fe not e*«a [of] prune importance Cor ua to live, rub
along tomebow, in amity and peace together. That what
is important and necemry and «ig«ot (urgent: we are
reaching the point now where we haven't time any
move) ia that we federate together, show a coounon unifiedfrontnot for dull peace and amity, butfornuvtval
ai a people and a nation.
It may already be too late; at a nation and a people we
m«y already be on the way down and out. But I do not
believe it. I decline m believe that in crisis we cannot
rally our national character to that -same courage and
toughness which the English people for iiutance did
when as a nation they stood alone in Europeforthe national principle thai men shall and can be free. Ours
will be a bigger task not bconue the threat ia greater but
became we will have to stand up not as one nation
among a continent of nations nor even in a h«n>isphcre
of nations* but as the last people unified nationally (or
* WrtOen m dm b r ^ i of cte Ugb Kfcoot Integratfen aU* tn
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PLEASE DELIVER THE FOLLOWING PAOB(S) XNKBDZAT8LV TO)
Hr. Mike McCurry, Press Secretary, The White House
PROMl
_
Mr. Al Richman, Office of Reaearcfc, US1A
September 19, 1997
DATE I
TOTAL NUMBER 07 PAGES INCLUDINO THIS COVER PAGE!
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OII N
PNO
ANALYSIS
US
INI OHM* HON Al.ih NC Y WASMINr.ION tic ;'ns</
September 19,1997
T-768 P-OZ/Oi Job-069
USIA
o r I 11 1- O l I I I •> I. 'I t i c I I A H U Mfc U l d n e A C i I O N
M-156-97
Racial Prejudice in U.S, Drops to New Low, But AffinnatJve Action Remains Unpopular
Recent polls document the sharp decline in discriminatory attitudes toward blacks during the
past 30-40 years, although a considerable residue of anti-black feelings remain on certain
issues.' Viewed in conjunction, results from the latest NORC survey (Spring, 1996) reveal thm
about one out of every ten Americans expresses "old-fashioned racism" - down from about one
out of every two Americans who expressed those same Views a generation ago. In addition,
approximately 30 percent of Americans support the principle of racial equality but are
negatively predisposed toward blacks and oppose specific policies intended to implement the
general principle of equality*
2
Discriminatory Attitude*
The proportion of Americans expressing discriminatoiy anti-black attitudes has fallen by nearly
S percentage points during the past 30-40 years:
O
In the early ^O's, a majority of Americans favored laws against marriages between
white and black Americans (60%) and believed "white people have arightto keep
Negroes out of their neighborhoods" (55%). Support for these discriminatory policies
declined to about two-fifths of the public in the 1970*1 and to about one-fifth in the late
1980'6. On NORC'a latest trend measures (1996), only one In ten Aroericans expressed
these views. (See Tables IA and IB)
^
t
Since the late ^SO's. The number of Americans who said they would be willing to vote
for a black person nominated by their political pany "If he were qualified for the job" has
risenfrom37 percent (July 1958) to 90 pereent (spring 1996). (Table IC).
3
1
Meet of these long-tenn trend poll data comefromsurveys conducted by the National Opinion Resauch
Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago.
2
,
This is defined as a "btatogically based theory of Africanracialinferiarity fitvoring'VadaJ segregation
and formal racial dlscrlminadon." See David O. Sears, et. al., 1» ft Really Racism: The Origins of Whit©
Americans' Opposition to Race-Targeted PollclM," p,yfflleflplniflfHtfluartflriv.Spring 1997. pp. 16-53.
3
NORCs trend meaiures on job discrimination (1944-1972) show discriminatory attitudes began their
descent well before the I S T: In mid-1944. half of the American public (51%) believed "white people should have
WC s
thefirstehanoe at any kind of job," compared to 42% who thought "Negroes should have as good a chance as white
people." By 1963,15% favored preferential treatment for whites, compared to 83% who favored equal treatment.
In 1972, the I time this q :ion was asked, only 3 fa* I preferential treatment for whites (vs. 96% favored
%
equal treatment).
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Anti-Black Sentiment
The proportion of Americans having negative attitudes toward blacks, Including those expressly
favoring racial discrimination, has declined less precipitously since the mid-1960s and remains
fairly widespread: In 1996, two-fifths of Americans agreed with the statement, "Blacks shouldn't
push themselves where they're not wanted" (39% agreed vs. 57% disagreed). In 1963.71
percent agreed (vs. 27% disagreed with that statement. (Table ID).
,
Affirmative Action
Opposition to affirmative action programs generally includes those who voice support for racial
discrimination against blacks (about 10% in 1996), as well as those expressing negative ~ but not
discriminatory - attitudes about blacks (about 30% in 1996). Opposition to specific affirmative
action proposals also may include those whose views are not raoially-based, but stem instead
from personal values (e.g„ individualism, egalitarianism), conservative political ideology, party
identification, social welfare policy attitudes or other non-racial factors. The size of this group Is
estimated between 15-40 percent opposed, depending on the particular Issue tested. Support for
afflrmatlve action In general has ranged between 15-27 percent during the 1975-1996 i«riod. and
shows a decline of nearly 10 percentage points between tho start and end of this period.
Opposition has been very stable at about 50 percent between 1975-1996/ (Table 2)
Prepared by: Alvln Richman (619-5140; richman®usia,gov)
Issued by: USIA Office of Research and Media Reaction
4
Survey data on affirmative action programs are discussed in Qiartone Siech and Maria Krysan, "The Polls
- Trends: Affirmative Acdon a d the Public, 1970-1995," PuMfa npininn Ouaiwlv. Spring 1996, pp. 128-158.
n
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Table 1. U.S. Public's Attitudes Toward Race: Long-term Trends
(NORC Polls Except Where Noted)
A. "Do you think there should be laws against manages between (Negtoes/blacks) and whitesT"
B. "How much do your agree or disagree with the following statements... White people have a right to
keep (Negroes/blacks) out of their neighborboexjs if they want to. and (Negroea/blacks) shouldrespectthai
rightr
C. "If your party nominated a (Negro/black) for President, would you vote for him if he were qualified for
thejobr
D. "How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements.... (Negroes/blacks) shouldn't
push thomaelves where they're not wanted?"
A. Laws Against
^lack-White
Marriages
Yes No
B. While People C. Could Vote for D. Blacks Shouldn 7
Black Candidate Push Where They're
Have Fight to
Exclude Blacks
Not Wanted
for President
Agree Disagree
Agree Disagree
Yes
So
Survey pate:
3/96
3/94
3/89
3/85
3/80
3/75
11%
14
21
25
29
38
87%
84
77
72
68
60
3/72
38
59
10/71 (Gallup)
4-5/70
48
48
4/68
12/63
S3
60
43
36
8/63 (Gallup)
7/58 (Gallup)
11%
86%
15
83
21
78
Not Asked
30
66
Not Asked
38
36
43
55
55
SO
43
44
90% 7%
88
9
79
16
81
15
Not Asked
77
17
69
25
69
23
Not Asked
Not Asked
Not Asked
48
45
37
53
39%
57
41
55
Not Asked
58
39
65
33
73
25
71
23
77
77^
71^
16
21
27
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Table 2. U.S. Public's Support for Affirmative Action in General
(NORC Polls)
Question: "Some people think that blacks have been discriminated against for so long that the government
has a special obligation to help improve their living standaids. Ochare believe thai the government should
not be giving special neatment to blacks. Where would you place yourself on this scale, or haven't you
made up your mind on this?" Responses: S-point scale with I meaning "I strongly agree government is
obligated to help blacks" and S meaning "I strongly agree that government shouldn't give special
treatment." (Responses 1 and 2 combined in the Table, as well asresponses4 and 5; "don't know"
responses are omitted from the Table.)
No Special
Treament
Mid-point
qf Scale ("3")
(RespoiUfi4+S)
1996
1994
1990
1989
1986
1983
1975
51%
52
43
51
51
S3
52
Government
Should Help
(Respontes 7+2)
29%
29
33
27
29
26
31
16%
15
20
18
18
27
24
�superiority to southerners in terms of racial attitudes and
policies should reflect on the fact that southern white students
have experienced far more actual desegregation for a quarter
century and some northern states w i t h very small black enrollments
have been more resistant and made less progress than southern
states w i t h far larger black communities.
The exposure of whites to schools which average more than 1 0 %
Latino enrollment is limited to six Southwestern s t a t e s - N e w Mexico
( 3 6 % ) , California ( 2 3 % ) , Texas (19), Arizona (19), Colorado ( 1 3 % ) ,
and Nevada ( 1 3 % ) . In eight other states, the typical white is in a
school w i t h more than one-twentieth Latinos. The number is lower
in the other 36 states and that is a major reason that national
attention on this extremely important population is limited. In the
long run, secondary immigration may distribute Latinos much more
broadly across the nation.
Federal and Statfi Pnliry
The Clinton administration has no stated policy on the
movement back t o w a r d segregation and has given no priority to
supporting successful desegregation. Although it is presiding
over the period of the most rapid resegregation of the South
since the Brown decision, it has not proposed any initiative,
though the hostility of the previous 12 years has ended and
positions have been changed on some important cases. There has
been no proposal to restore the federal desegregation aid program
that reached its peak under President Carter and whose funding
was eliminated under President Reagan. Although the
administration is asking for large increases in compensatory
education, to a total of $7B for children in high poverty low
performance schools, it has no initiative to move children out of
such failing schools or even to slow the termination of
desegregation plans in communities where equal education for
minority students has never been achieved.
The only t w o desegregation-related items left in the
education budget are for the small desegregation assistance
centers set up under the 1 9 6 4 Civil Rights Act and the Magnet
school program, which is often used to help pay for some of the
voluntary elements in rifisfigragation plans.- -The White House has
i^questi^^ei^increasesJor^eaclT^prog ra m.
School desegregation has not been chosen as a priority issue
by the Education department's Office for Civil Rights or the
Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and no major new
research on the consequences of segregation or the best methods
for improving the successful operation of multiracial schools and
classrooms have been commissioned. The leaders of both the
Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the Education
Department's Office for Civil Rights recently stated that neither
department has issued any statement of its policy on school
desegregation during the Clinton Administration and that each is
responding on a case-by-case basis.
Very f e w states had active state government
efforts to enforce school desegregation in the middle
f
QX^^i(J^V
v—-^
�1990s. Some that once had rules or state legal
requirements had suspended them or had terminated the
offices that administered t h e m . In California, for
example, where segregation was increasing rapidly for
both blacks and Latinos, and for some groups of Asian
students, the State Department of Education's
Intergroup Relations Office was abolished, though the
state provides funds for court ordered remedies. In
Illinois, the state supreme court took away the state
board of education's right to enforce desegregation
requirements. In New Jersey, the state desegregation
office was abolished under Governor Christie Whitman.]
In Connecticut the state supreme court has ordered the
state to do more and the issue is pending before the
legislature.
Many states have adopted policies to publicize
achievement results by district and school and they
repeatedly publish lists that show urban minority
schools w i t h very high levels of concentrated poverty
at the bottom in academic achievement without ever
discussing the very frequent relationship between
segregated education and low achievement. If
standards are to be raised w i t h high stakes for
students, states must be concerned about the
structural fairness of their system to minority
students.
|ionclusion/'
In American race relations, the bridge from the twentieth
century may be leading back into the nineteenth century. We may
be deciding to bet the future of the country once more on
separate but equal. There is no evidence that separate but equal
today works any more than it did a century ago.
The debate that has been stimulated by recent Supreme Court
decisions is a debate about how and when to end desegregation
plans. The most basic need now is for a serious national
examination of the cost of resegregation and the alternative
solutions to problems w i t h existing desegregation plans. Very
f e w Americans prefer segregation and most believe that
desegregation has had considerable value, but most whites are
still opposed to plans which involve mandatory transportation of
students. During the last fifteen years plans have been evolving
to include more educational reforms and choice mechanisms to try
to achieve desegregation and educational gains simultaneously A
stronger fair housing law, a number of settlements of housing
segregation cases, and federal initiatives to change the
operation of subsidized housing-as well as the very rapid
creation of brand new communities in the sunbelt all offer
opportunities to try to change the pattern of segregated housing
that underlies school segregation. Policies that would help move
the country back t o w a r d a less polarized society include:
1) resumption of serious enforcement of desegregation
by the Justice Department and serious investigation
of the degree to which districts have complied w i t h
�all Supreme Court requirements by the Department
of Education. Such requirements could be appropriately
specified in a federal regulation
2) creation of a new federal education program to train
students, teachers, and administrators in human
relations, conflict resolution, and multi-ethnic
education techniques and to help districts devise
appropriate plans and curricula for successful multiracial schools
3) serious federal research on multiracial schools and
the comparative success of segregated and desegregated
schools
4) a major campaign to increase nonwhite teachers and
administrators through a combination of employment
discrimination enforcement and resources for
recruitment and education of potential teachers
5) incorporation of successful desegregation into the
national educational goals
6) federal and state efforts to expand the use of
integrated t w o - w a y bilingual programs from the
demonstration stage to become a major technique
for improving both second language acqusition
for both English speakers and other language
speakers and successful enthic relationships
7) additional Title IV resources to expand state
education department staffs working on desegregation
and racial equity in the schools
8) federal, state, and local plans to coordinate housing
policy w i t h school desegregation policy
9) examination of choice and charter school plans to
assure that they are not increasing segregation and
to reinforce their potential contribution to
desegregation
10) examination of high stakes state testing programs
to assure that they are not punishing the minority
students w h o must attend inferior segregated
schools under existing state and local policies
�APPENDIX A Data Sources
Unless otherwise noted, the data source for all tables on 1994 statisics is
the 1 9 9 4 - 9 5 NCES Common Core of Data School Universe. Schools included in the
analyses are all Type 1 (regular) schools in Types 1 - 4 agencies. Alaska,
Hawaii, and U.S. possessions are excluded, except when noted. Idaho is
excluded from most table because school enrollments by race were not reported
by that state to NCES. The data analyzed are from 7 8 , 6 0 5 schools in 1 4 , 2 8 3
districts in 4 7 states and Washington DC. The following states did not report
the number of free lunch eligible students: Alabama, Arizona, Illinois,
Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington and,
therefore, could not be included in the national calculations of the
relationship between race and poverty in the schools.
Appendix B: Definition of Regions
South:Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Border:Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.
Northeast:Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Midwest:lllinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North
Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
West:Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah,
Washington, and W y o m i n g .
Notes:Alaska and Hawaii are excluded from most parts of this study because of
their unique ethnic compositions and isolation from the regions studied here.
Analyses of these states would require close attention to Asian and American
Indian populations and could be carried out from the same dataset.
Idaho is excluded from this study because school enrollments by race were not
reported by that state.
Gary Orfield
�After the Supreme Court outlawed segregated education in the South, it took 15 years and a series of
actions by the courts, Congress, the executive branch, and civil rights groups
before the seventeen states with legal segregation was changed from an area of total educational
segregation to the nation's most integrated area. It remained that way for a generation. Now there are
clear signs that that progress is coming undone and that the nation is headed backwards toward greater
segregation of black students, particularly in the states with a history of de jure segregation.
The trends reported here are the first since the Supreme Court approved a return to segregated
neighborhood schools under some conditions. A number of major cities have recently received court
approval for such changes and others are in court. The segregation changes reported here are most
striking in the southern and border states but segregation is spreading across the nation, particularly
affecting our rapidly growing Latino communities in the West. This report shows that the racial and ethnic
segregation of African American and Latino students has produced a deepening isolation from middle
class students and from successful schools. It also highlights a little noticed but extremely important
expansion of segregation to the suburbs, particularly in the larger metropolitan areas. Expanding
segregation is a mark of a polarizing society without effective policies for building multiracial institutions.
Latino students, who will soon be the largest minority group in American public schools, were granted
the right to desegregated education by the Supreme Court in I973 but new data shows they now are
significantly more segregated than black students, with clear evidence of increasing isolation across the
nation. In contrast to the varied regional trends and changes in direction over time for African Americans,
Latino students are becoming more isolated almost everywhere. Part of this trend is caused by the very
rapid growth in the number of Latino students in several major states. Regardless of the reasons, Latino
students now experience more isolation from whites and more concentration in high poverty schools than
any other group of students. This was long true in the centers of Puerto Rican settlement in the
Northeast but it is rapidly increasing now for students in the areas where the Latino communities are
overwhelmingly of Mexican background.
The segregation is not simply racial separation; it is segregation by class and family and community
educational background as well. Segregated black and Latino schools are fundamentally different from
segregated white schools in terms of the background of the children and many things that relate to
educational quality. This report shows that only a twentieth of the nation's segregated white schools face
conditions of concentrated poverty among their children but more than 80% of segregated black a
nd Latino schools do. Desegregation is not only sitting next to someone of the other race. A child moving
from a segregated African American or Latino school to a white school will very likely exchange conditions
of concentrated poverty for a middle class school. Exactly the opposite is true when a child is sent back
�from an interracial school to a segregated neighborhood school as is happening under a number of recent
court orders which end busing or desegregation choice plans.
This is of fundamental importance to educational opportunity. The United States is a nation with a
shrinking proportion of white students and a rising share of black and Hispanic students, groups which
experience far less success in American publiceducation and are concentrated in schools with lower
achievement levels and less demanding competition. Recent court decisions approving a return to
segregated neighborhood schools in various parts of the country will intensify the isolation.
The Supreme Court's 1954 conclusion that intentionally segregated schools are "inherently unequal"
and contemporary evidence indicating that this remains true today, means that it is very important to
continuously monitor the extent to which the nation is realizing the promise of equal educational
opportunity in schools that are now racially segregated. Education was vital to the success of the black
tenth of the U.S. population when de jure segregation was declared unconstitutional in 1954. It is f
ar more important today, in an era in which millions of the good, low-education jobs have vanished. Now
we are talking about a society which now has one-third non-white public school students where whites
will make up only half of the school age population in a third of a century if well-established trends
continue. The stakes are much higher and this report shows that we are moving backward toward greater
separation rather than pressing gradually forward as we were between the 1950s and the mid-1980s for b
This report presents the latest available evidence on segregation trends from federal enrollment
statistics. It shows a delayed impact of the Reagan Administration campaign to reverse desegregation
orders, which made no progress while Reagan was President but now has had a substantial impact
through appointments which transformed the federal courts. The 1991-94 period following the Supreme
Court's first decision authorizing resegregation witnessed the continuation of the largest backward
movement toward segregation for blacks in the 43 years since Brown v. Board of Education.
During the 1980s, the courts rejected efforts to terminate school desegregation and the level of
desegregation actually increased although the Reagan and Bush Administrations advocated reversals.
Congress rejected proposals for major steps to reverse desegregation, and there has been no tend
toward increasing hostility to desegregation in public opinion. In fact, opinion is becoming more favorable.
The policy changes have come from the courts. The Supreme Court in decisions from 1991 to 1995 has
given lower courts discretion to approve resegregation on a large scale and it is beginning to occur.
The statistics reported today show only the first phase of what is likely to be an accelerating trend.
These statistics for the 1994-95 school year do not reflect post-1994 decisions to end desegregation plans
�in a number of areas including metropolitan Wilmington, Broward County Florida, Denver, Buffalo, Mobile,
Cleveland, and a number of others. Important cases in a number of other cities are pending in court now.
These decisions are virtually certain to accelerate the trend toward increased racial and economic
segregation of African American and Latino students. Thus the trends reported today should be taken as
a modest sign of larger changes now under way.
Background of Desegregation. Forty-three years ago, in 1954, the Supreme Court began the process
of desegregating American public education in its landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education. Thirtythree years ago, Congress took its most powerful action for school desegregation with the passage of the
1964 Civil Rights Act. Twenty-six years ago.in 1971, the great national battle over urban desegregation
began with the Supreme Court's decision in the Charlotte, North Carolina busing case, Swann v.CharlotteMecklenberg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971). With Swann, there was comprehensive set of
policies in place for massive desegregation in the South.
No similar body of law ever developed in the North and West. The Supreme Court first extended
some desegregation requirements to the cities of the North and recognized the rights of Hispanic as well
as black students from illegal segregation in I973. In the early 1970s Congress enacted legislation to help
pay for the training and educational changes (but not the busing) needed to make desegregation more
effective. The last major initiatives intended to foster desegregation took place more than two
decades ago.
Since 1974 almost all of the policy changes have been negative and there has been a major increase in
the nation's non- white population, particularly among school age children. The key decision limiting
metropolitan desegregation, Milliken v. Bradley (418 U.S. 717 (1974), concerned metropolitan Detroit and
was a drastic limitation on the possibility of substantial and lasting city-suburban school desegregation in
what was rapidly becoming a society dominated by suburbia, a society in which only a small fraction of
white middle class children were growing up in central cities. That decision ended significant movement
toward less segregated schools and made desegregation virtually impossible in many metro areas where
the nonwhite population was concentrated in central cities. (It is not surprising that the state of Michigan
ranks second in the nation in segregation of black students two decades after the Supreme Court
confined desegregation efforts within the boundaries of a largely black and rapidly de
The Supreme Court ruled that the courts could try to make segregated schools more equal in its
second Detroit decision in I977, Milliken v. Bradley II. The Court authorized an order that the State of
Michigan pay for some needed programs in Detroit which were aimed at repairing the harms inflicted by
segregation in schools that would remain segregated because of the 1974 decision blocking city-suburban
�desegregation. Unfortunately, there was little serious follow-up on the educational remedies by
the courts and the Supreme Court would radically limit their reach in the 1995 Jenkins decision.
The government turned actively against school desegregation in 1981 under the Reagan
Administration, with the Justice Department reversing policy on many pending cases and attacking urban
desegregation orders. Congress accepted the Administration's proposal to end the federal desegregation
assistance program in the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Twelve years of active efforts to
reverse desegregation orders and remake the federal courts followed before the Clinton Administration
which defended some orders but developed no coherent policy and took no significant initiatives for
desegregation.
By far the most important changes in policy in the 1990s came from the Supreme Court. The
appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 consolidated a majority favoring cutting back civil rights
remedies requiring court-ordered changes in racial pa
tterns. In the 1991 Dowell decision the Supreme Court ruled that a school district that had complied with its
court order for several years could be allowed to return to segregated neighborhood schools. In the I992
Pitts decision, the Court made it easier to end student desegregation even when the other elements of a
full desegregation order had never been accomplished. Finally, in its I995 Jenkins decision, the Court's
majority ruled that the court-ordered programs designed to make segregated schools more equal
educationally and to increase the attractiveness of the schools to accomplish desegregation through
voluntary choices were temporary and did not have to work before they could be discontinued.
In other words, desegregation was redefined from the goal of ending schools defined by race to a
temporary and limited process that created no lasting rights and need not overcome the inequalities
growing out of a segregated history. These decisions stimulated efforts in a number of cities to end the
court orders, sometimes even over the objection of the school districts involved.
Racial Composition of American Schools. As the courts were cutting back on desegregation
requirements the proportion of minority students in public schools was growing rapidly and becoming far
more diverse. American public schools enrolled more than 43 million students in the fall of I994 of whom
66 percent were white, 17% African American, 13% Latino, 4% Asian and 1% Indian and Alaskan. By I994
the proportion of Latinos in the U.S. was higher than that of blacks at the time desegregation began in
I954 and the proportion of whites far lower. The two regions with the largest enrollments, the South and
the West, were 58% and 57% white, foreshadowing a near future in which large regions of the U.S. will
have white minorities. Table 1 shows that ther
�e has been a huge 178% growth in the number of Latino students during the 26 years from 1968 when
data was first available nationally to I994, while the number of white (Anglo) students declined 9% and the
number of black students rose.
��outhwestern Bell
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
FAX#: 501373-5046
THIS FAX IS FDR:
NAME:
Janis Kearney
ADDRESS:
The White House
TELEPHONE:
202-456-1997
,
TOTAL PAGES (NOT INCLUDING THIS PAGE):
(PLEASE DELIVER OR CALL FOR PICK-UP)
MESSAGE FROM:
DATE:
Larry Ross (501-373-5151^
September 5, 1997
MESSAGE (IF ANY):
IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS RECEIVING THIS TRANSMISSION, PLEASE CALL
NAME:
Karen Huddleaton
TELEPHONE:
TOO®
idaa H HV lews
d
501-373-4864
gtoe cic
TOSO
gc:sT ze/so/eo
�THIS COMMEMORATION CEREMONY
HAS FOCUSED A LOT OF ATTENTION
ON CENTRAL HIGH'S FRONT DOORS.
FORTY YEARS AGO, THOSE DOORS
BECAME SYMBOLIC BARRIERS
SEPARATING NINE STUDENTS FROM A
HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION.
7
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�'Page 2
LAST WEEK, HOWEVER, A NEW SET OF
FRONT DOORS WERE INSTALLED AT
CENTRAL HIGH. THESE NEW DOORS
ARE WHAT YOU WOULD CALL
"VIRTUAL" FRONT DOORS, AND THEY
LEAD STUDENTS INTO THE WORLD OF
THE INTERNET.
tooia
Id H Hd HV mus
Q
9fOS fiC TOSO
iC-£T
i6/S0/60
�PageS
LAST WEEK, SOUTHWESTERN BELL
VOLUNTEERS COMPLETED A MASSIVE
PROJECT IN WHICH THEY WIRED FREE
OF CHARGE CENTRAL HIGH'S 120
CLASSROOMS FOR INTERNET ACCESS.
THE CENTRAL HIGH PROJECT IS PART
OF A COMPANYWIDE INITIATIVE IN
WHICH SOUTHWESTERN BELL
VOLUNTEERS ARE WIRING 6,200
MIDWESTERN CLASSROOMS FOR
INTERNET ACCESS. AS WE ALL KNOW,
THE INTERNET IS A POWERFUL
EDUCATIONAL TOOL.
-OOfg
-Id3a
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9fOS CIC TOSS
IC:ST
i6/S0.'60
�Page 4
BY WIRING CENTRAL HIGH FOR
INTERNET ACCESS, SOUTHWESTERN
BELL HAS BROADENED THE
DEFINITION OF "EDUCATIONAL
ACCESS."
-
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SEP 17'97
11:45 No.005 P.01
©
J~
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
Southwestern Beil
TelephoneFOR:
THIS FAX IS
NAME:
FAX#: 501373
^
--»
fflOUAA.
ADDRESS:
TELEPHONE:
TOTAL PAGES (NOT INCLUDING THIS PAGE):
1$
(PLEASE DELIVER OR CALL FOR PICK-UP)
MESSAGE FROM:
DATE:
# 7 7 - ^7
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IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS RECEIVING THIS TRANSMISSION. PLEASE CALL
NAME:
TELEPHONE:
C^nCl'l^
�E'XEC'.DIR.GDUT.RELS.
ID :5013735024
SEP I T ' S ?
1 1 : 4 6 No.005 P.02
Little Rock, September 17, 1997
Fax to: Laura Capps
From: Ed Drilling
Re: Wiring of Central High School
Dear Laura:
Beth Coulson advised us that you needed more information regarding
Southwestern Bell's efforts to wire all the class rooms at Central High
School as well as other schools around the state for internet service.
We really appreciate President Clinton's interest in this effort. I'm
forwarding the press release and some other information on this subject 1
hope you will find helpful.
If you need anything else please call me at 501-373-6333.
for your help.
Ed Drilling
Again, thanks
�E X C . DIR. GOUT .RELS .
TE
I
0=S013 35024
7
SEP 17-97
H :46 N, .005 P.03
@) Souiliwestern Del
News Release
For Immcdi»te Release
Contacts; Michftel Slatin, 3 H/982-8661
Jackie Hinunelberg, 314/982-8626
SOUTHWESTERN BELL CONNECTS
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL TO THE INTERNET
Internet Access Enhances the Education of Arkansas' Youth
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Sept. 11,1997 - Thanks to Internet-access wiring that is
being installed by Southwestern Bell volunteers this week, students at Central High
School in Little Rock will be able to conduct research at the Libraiy of Congress, look up
the Sahara Desert's average annual rainfall and e-mailfriendsand family worldwide.
The wiring of Central High for Internet access is part of Operation SchoolNet Southwestern Bell's educational initiative to bring the Internet into 100 schools
throughout Arkansas, allowing IC-12 students to fiilly capitalize on the educational
benefits available through the Internet.
Members of the Southwestern Bell Pioneers and the Communication Workers of
America (CWA) have spent several evenings at Central High School wiring it for Internet
access. In fact, the entire wiring project will take a total of seven days - about eight horns
a day-to complete.
-more*
SEP
16
'97
10:24
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Operation SchoolNet/Add One
"Southwestern Bell has a long tradition of leadership and investing in the
communities we serve, especially in the area of educatioiV said Mike Gilliam, regional
president of Southwestern Bell-Arkansas. "Wc believe our children should have access
to this great educational resource so thai they pan leam more about the world around
them. The Internet will expand their knowledge and encourage their thirst for Learning."
Volunteers from Southwestern Bell are donating their time and "sweat equity" to
wire all 100 schools statewide in Operation SchoolNet. The company's volunteer group,
the Southwestern Bell Pioneers, is made up of current employees and retirees, In
Arkansas, there are 4,800 Pioneers - making the group one of the largest volunteer
organizations in the state. Operation SchoolNet also is endorsed by the CWA.
"This is the largest education-related project ever undertaken by Southwesteni
Bell volunteers," said John Graham, president of CWA Local 6508. "From Fayetteville
to Little Rock to El Dorado, we plan to wire 100 schools with Internet hook-ups, This
campaign could take more t e a year, but the resulting educational benefits for our
hm
children will last them a lifetime."
Lucent Technologies is donating the wiring kits necessary for schools to connect
to the Internet. The kits include wiring, computer connectors and a central connecting
block,
Schools are selected fox wiring on the basis of the availability of computer
equipment and detailed plans on how to incorporate the Internet into the cutriculum.
Once a school is selected, a Southwestern Bell Pioneer On-Site Coordinator
begins planning the wire-up activities with the neighborhood school and Southwestern
Bell volunteers.
-more-
SEP 16 'S? 10:24
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SEP 17 97
11:47 No .005 P.05
Operation SchoolNet/Add Two
Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. provides basic and leading-edge telephone services
andproducts to more than 13.5 million business and residemial customert - a total of more than
IS million access lints - tn Texas, Missouri. Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas, Jt is a company of
SBC Communications Inc., an internailonol leader in the telecommunications industry, -with more
than 32 million access lines and nearty 5 million wireless customers across the United St(it is, as
well as investments in telecommunications businesses In nine countries. Under the Southwestern
Bell Pacific Bell, Nevada Bell and Cellular One brands, the compatjy, through its subsidiaries,
offers a wide range of innovative savices, including local and long-distance telephone seivlce.
wireless communications, posing. Internet access, cable TV and messaging, as well as
telecommunicattons equipm ent, and directory advert is ing and publishing. SBC (www. sbc. com)
has more than 114,000 employees. SBC reported J996 revenues ofS23.S billion.
SEP
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PAGE
Deepening Segregation in American Public Schools
Gary Orfield, Harvard University, Mark D. Bachmeier
David R. James and Tamela Eitle, Indiana University
Harvard Project on School Desegregation
April 5,1997
BSJTRODUCnON
After the Supreme Court outlawed segregated education in the South, it took fifteen years
and a series of actions by the courts. Congress, the executive branch, and civilrightsgroups
before the seventeen states with legal segregation were changed from an area of total educational
segregation to the nation's most integrated. It remained that way for a generation. Now, there are
clear signs that that progress is coming undone and that the nation is headed backwards toward
greater segregation of black students, particularly in the states with a history of dejure
segregation.
The trendsreportedhere are the first since the Supreme Court approved areturnto
segregated neighborhood schools under some conditions. A number of major cities have recently
received court approval for such changes and others are in court. The segregation changes
reported here are most striking in the southern and border states but segregation is spreading
across the nation, particularly affecting our rapidly growing Latino communities in the West.
Thisreportshows that the racial and ethnic segregation of African American and Latino students
has produced a deepening isolation from middle class students and from successful schools. It
also highlights a little noticed but extremely important expansion of segregation to the suburbs.
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particularly in larger metropolitan areas. Expanding segregation is a mark of a polarizing society
without effective policies for building multiracial institutions.
Latino students, who will soon be the largest minority group in American public schools,
were granted therightto desegregated education by the Supreme Court in 1973 but new data
show they now are significantly more segregated than black students, with clear evidence of
increasing isolation across the nation. In contrast to the variedregionaltrends and changes in
direction over time for African Americans, Ladno students are becoming more isolated almost
everywhere. Part of this trend is caused by the very rapid growth in the number of Latino
students in several major states. Regardless of the reasons. Latino students now experience more
isolationfromwhites and more concentration in high poverty schools than any other group of
students. This was long true in the centers of Puerto Rican settlement in the Northeast but it is
rapidly increasing now for students in areas where the Latino communities are overwhelmingly
1
of Mexican background.
The segregation is not simply racial separation; it is segregation by class and family and
community educational background as well. Segregated black and Latino schools are
fundamentally different from segregated white schools in terms of the background of the children
and many things that relate to educational quality. Thisreportshows that only a twentieth of the
nation's segregated white schools face conditions of concentrated poverty among their children
but more than 80% of segregated black and Latino schools do. Desegregation is not only sitting
next to someone of the other race. A child moving from a segregated African American or
Latino school to a white school will very likely exchange conditions of concentrated poverty for
a middle class school. Exactly the opposite is true when a child is sent back from an interracial
'Disttibutien of Latinos by ethnicity and state is reported in M. Beatriz Arias, The Context of Education for
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3
school to a segregated neighborhood school as is happening under a number of recent court
orders which end busing or desegregation choice plans.
This is of fundameni-l importance to educational opportunity. The United States is a
nation with a shrinking proportion of white students and a rising share of black and Latino
students, groups which experience far less success in American public education and are
concentrated in schools with lower achievement levels and less demanding competition. Recent
court decisions approving a return to segregated neighborhood schools in various parts of the
country will intensify the isolation.
The Supreme Court's 1954 conclusion that intentionally segregated schools are
"inherently unequal," and contemporary evidence indicating that thisremainstrue today, means
that it is very important to continuously monitor the extent to which the nation is realizing the
promise of equal educational opportunity in schools that are now racially segregated. Education
was vital to the success of the black tenth of the U.S. population when dejure segregation was
declared unconstitutional in 1954. It is far more important today, in an era in which millions of
the good, low-education jobs have vanished. We are now talking about a society which has
2
one-third non-white public school students and where whites will make up only half of the
3
school age population in a third of a century if well-established trends continue. The stakes are
much higher and thisreportshows that we are moving backward toward greater separation rather
Hispanic Students: An Overview," American Journal of Education, vol. 95, no. 1 (November 1986): 26-57.
i
In thisreport,"white" means non-Hispanic white$. Hispanic or Latino is treated as pan of the -non-whitepopulation, although many Latinos define themselves as whites in racial terms. These definitions are used to avoid
the awkward and confusing language that would otherwise be necessary and is not an attempt to define Launos as a
race.
^ . S . Census Bureau projections. Steven A. Holmes. "Census Sees a Profound Ethnic Shift in U.S.," New York
Times. March 14. 19$6; Education Week, March 1996.
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4
than pressing gradually forward as we were between the 1950s and the mid-1980s for black
students.
This repon presents the latest available evidence on segregation trends from federal
enrollment statistics. It shows a delayed impact of the Reagan Administration campaign to
reverse desegregation orders, which made no progress while Reagan was President but now has
had a substantial impact through appointments which transformed the federal courts. The
1991-94 period following the Supreme Court'sfirstdecision authorizing resegregation witnessed
the continuation of the largest backward movement toward segregation for blacks in the fortythree years since Brown v. Board of Education.
During the 1980s, the courtsrejectedefforts to terminate school desegregation and the
level of desegregation actually increased, although the Reagan and Bush Administrations
advocated reversals. Congressrejectedproposals for major steps to reverse desegregation and
there has been no trend toward increasing hostility to desegregation in public opinion. In fact,
opinion is becoming more favorable * The policy changes have come from the courts. The
Supreme Court, in decisions from 1991 to 1995, has given lower courts discretion to approve
resegregation on a large scale and it is beginning to occur.
The statisticsreportedtoday show only thefirstphase of what is likely to be an
accelerating trend. These statistics for the 1994-95 school year do not reflect post-1994 decisions
to end desegregation plans in a number of areas including metropolitan Wilmington, Broward
^Gary Orfield. "Public Opinion and School Desegregation." Teachers College Record, vol. 96, no. 4 (Summer
1995); Gallup Poll in USA Today. May 12. 1994; Gallup Poll in Phi Delta Kappan. September 1996. The 1996
survey reponed that "the percentages who say integration has improved the quality of education for blacks and for
whites have been increasing steadily since these questions were first asked in 1971," The repon also showed thai
11% of the public believed that interracial schools were desirable (PDK. September 1996: 48).
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5
County Florida, Denver, Buffalo, Mobile, Cleveland, and a number of othere. Important cases in
a number of other cities are pending in court now. These decisions are virtually certain to
accelerate the trend toward increased racial and economic segregation of African American and
Latino students. Thus, the trendsreportedtoday should be taken as a modest sign of larger
changes now under way.
BACKGROUND OF DESEGREGATION
Forty-three years ago, in 1954, the Supreme Court began the process of desegregating
American public education in its landmark decision. Brown v. Board of Education. Thirty-three
years ago. Congress took its most powerful action for school desegregaiion with the passage of
the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Twenty-six years ago, in 1971, the great national battle over urban
desegregation began with the Supreme Courts decision in the Charlotte, North Carolina busing
5
case, Swann v.Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. With Swann, there was a
comprehensive set of policies in place for massive desegregation in the South.
No similar body of law ever developed in the North and WesL The Supreme Court first
extended some desegregation requirements to the cities of the North and recognized therightsof
6
Hispanic as well as black students from illegal segregation in 1973. In the early 1970s, Congress
enacted legislation to help pay for the training and educational changes (but not the busing)
needed to make desegregation more effective. The last major initiatives intended to foster
desegregation took place more than two decades ago.
*402U.S. 1 (1971).
6
Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1.413 U.S. 189 (1973).
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6
Since 1974, almost all of the policy changes have been negative and there has been a
major increase in the nation's non-white population, particularly among school age children. The
7
key decision limiting metropolitan desegregation. Milliken v. Bradley, concerned metropolitan
Detroit and was a drastic limitation on the possibility of substantial and lasting city-suburban
school desegregation in what was rapidly becoming a society dominated by suburbia, a society in
which only a small fraction of white middle class children were growing up in central cities. That
decision ended significant movement toward less segregated schools and made desegregation
virtually impossible in many metropolitan areas where the nonwhite population was concentrated
in central cities. (It is not surprising that the state of Michigan ranks second in the nation in
segregation of black students two decades after the Supreme Court confined desegregation efforts
8
within the boundaries of a largely black and rapidly dechning central city.)
The Supreme Court ruled that the courts could try to make segregated schools more equal
9
in its second Detroit decision in 1977, Milliken v. Bradley II. The Court authorized an order that
the State of Michigan pay for some needed programs in Detroit which were aimed at repairing
the harms inflicted by segregation in schools that wouldremainsegregated because of the 1974
decision blocking city-suburban desegregation. Unfortunately, there was little serious follow-up
on the educationalremediesby the courts and the Supreme Court would radically limit their
10
reach in the 1995 Missouri v. Jenkins decision.
7
4lg U.S. 717 (1974).
'Calculations of metropolitan segregation from 1992 NCES Common Core data.
9
433 U.$. 267 (1977).
l 0
l IS S.Ct. 2038 (1995).
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7
The government turned actively against school desegregation in 1981 under the Reagan
Administration, with the Justice Department reversing policy on many pending cases and
attacking urban desegregation orders. Congress accepted the Administration's proposal to end
the federal desegregation assistance program in the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
Twelve years of active effons to reverse desegregation orders and remake the federal courts
followed before the Clinton Administration, which defended some orders but developed no
coherent policy and took no significant initiadves for desegregaiion.
By far the most important changes in policy in the 1990s came from the Supreme Court
The appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 consolidated a majority favoring cutting
back civilrightsremedies requiring court-ordered changes in racial patterns. In the 1991 Board of
11
Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a school district
that had complied with its coun order for several years could be allowed to return to segregated
12
neighborhood schools. In the 1992 Freeman v. Pitts decision, the Court made it easier to end
student desegregation even when the other elements of a full desegregation order had never been
accomplished. Finally, in its 1995 Jenkins decision , the Court's majority ruled that the
court-ordered programs designed to make segregated schools more equal educationally and to
increase the attractiveness of the schools to accomplish desegregation through voluntary choices
were temporary and did not have to work before they could be discontinued.
In other words, desegregation was redefined from the goal of ending schools defined by
race to a temporary and limited process that created no lasting rights and need not overcome the
i;
498 U.S. 237(1991).
,J
503 U.S. 467 (1992).
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8
inequalities growing out of a segregated history. These decisions stimulated efforts in a number
of cities to end the court orders, sometimes even over the objecdon of the school districts
involved
RACIAL COMPOSmON OF AMERICAN SCHOOLS
As the courts were cutting back on desegregation requirements the proportion of minority
students in public schools was growing rapidly and becoming far more diverse. American public
schools enrolled more than 43 million students in the fall of 1994 of whom 66% were white, 17%
African American, 13% Torino, 4% Asian and 1 Indian and Alaskan. By 1994, the proportion
%
of l atinos in the U.S. was higher than that of blacks ar the time desegregation began in 1954 and
the proportion of whites far lower. The two regions with the largest enrollments, the South and
the West, were 58% and 57% white, foreshadowing a near future in which large regions of the
U-S. will have white minorities. Table I shows that there has been a huge 178% growth in the
number of Latino students during the 26 years from 1968, when data was first available
nationally, to 1994, while the number of white (Anglo) students declined 9% and the number of
black students rose 14%.
Table 1
Enrollment Changes, 1968-1994, in Millions
1968
1980
15*94
Change
2.00
3.18
5.57
+3.57 (178%)
Anglos
34.70
29.16
28.46
-6.24 ( -9%)
Blacks
6.28
6.42
7.13
40.85 ( 14%)
Hispanics
Source: DBS Corp.. 1982. 1987; Orfield. George, and Orfield. 1986: 1994 Common Core daia.
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On a regional level, African Americans remained the largest minority group
in the schools of all regions except the West and Alaska and Hawaii. The proportion of black
students in the South was, however, about twice the proportion in the Northeast and Midwest and
more than four times the level in the West Launos, on the other hand, had more than a fourth of
the enrollment in the West but only about a fiftieth in the Border region and
a twenty-fifth in the Midwest (table 2).
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10=6174963095
10
Table 2
Regular Public School Enrollments by Race/Ethnicity
by Region, 1994-95 School Year
Border
Northeast
Midwest
West**
Alaska
Hawaii
Total
Enrollment % White
13,104,747
57.8
3,356,431
75.0
7,566,103
70.9
9,382,999
80.1
9,478,267
56.6
121,895
64.4
183,737
23.2
U.S. Total ***
43,194,179
Region*
South
65.9
% Black % Latino
27.2
13.0
18.7
2.0
14.8
10.5
13.0
4.2
27.4
6.3
4.8
2.5
2.7
4.9
16.5
12.9
% Asian/ % Indian/
Pacific Alaskan
1.7
0.4
1.6
2.7
3.6
0.3
1.9
0.8
7.6
2.1
4.2
24.1
68.8
0.4
3.6
l.l
*
Sec Appendix B for a list of soies included in each region.
"
Theracialproportions for Idaho are estimaied from data collected by the U S- Department of Education Office
for Civil Rights (OCR) for the 1989-90 school year. The OCR data include 42 peraai of students in Idaho for
1989-90. The proportions differ by less than one percent from those reponed in the 1990 U.S. Census for all
students in Idaho.
*•* Alaska. Hawaii, and Idaho are included in this table but omitted from subsequent analyses (see Appendix A).
The dramatic changes in the composition of American school enrollment is most apparent in
five states which already have a majority of non-white students statewide. These include the
nation's two most populous states, California and Texas, which enroll 6.8 million students and
are both moving rapidly toward a Latino majority in their school systems (table 3).
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II
Table 3
Enrollments in Majority Non-White States
1994-95 School Year
Total
Enrollment % White
STATE
41.4
5,168,334
California
23.2
83,737
Hawaii
48.0
502,985
Mississippi
39.9
320.832
New Mexico
47.2
3,624,056
Texas
% Black % Latino
8.5
37.8
2.7
4.9
51.0
0.3
2.4
46.4
36.0
14.3
% Asian/ % Indian/
Pacific Alaskan
11.4
0.8
0.4
68.8
0.5
0.1
1.0
10.4
0.2
2.3
NATIONAL INCREASE IN SEGREGATION
In fall 1972, after the Supreme Court's 1971 busing decision, which led to new court orders
for scores of school districts, 63.6% of black students were in schools with less than half white
enrollment. Fourteen years later, in 1986, it was virtually the same but now it is 67.1 % (see
Table 4). Desegregation remained at its high point until about 1988 but then began to fall
significantly on this measure.
Table 4
Percent of US. Black and Latino Students in Predominantly
Minority and 90-100 Percent Minority Schools, 1968-1994
Predominantly Minority
YEAR
1968-69
1972-73
1980-81
1986-87
1991-92
1994-95
Blacks
76.6
63.6
62.9
63.3
66.0
67.1
Latinos
54.8
56.6
68.1
71.5
73.4
74.0
90-100% Minority
Blacks
64.3
38.7
33.2
32.5
33.9
33.6
Latinos
23.1
23.3
2S.8
32.2
34.0
34.8
Source: U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights data in Orfield. Public School Desegregaiion
in the United Siates. 1968-1980. tables 1 and 10; 1991 and 1994 NCES Common Core of Data.
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A second measure of segregation, calculated as the number of students experiencing intense
isolation in schools with less than one-tenth whites (i.e. 90-100% minority enrollment), shows
that the proportion of black students facing extreme isolation dropped sharply with the busing
decisions, declining from 64% in 196S to 39% in 1972 and continuing to decline slightly through
the mid 1980s (Table 4). This kind of intense isolation has increased gradually from 1988 to
1991 but actually declined slightly from 1991-1994. This is the only measure that does not show
increased black segregation.
The third measure of desegregation used in this study, the "exposure index" which calculates
the average white percentage in schools attended by black students, shows a level of contact with
whites almost as low as it was before the busing decisions in the early 1970s, 33.9%, down from
its 1980 level of 36.2% (Table 5). Overall, the level of black segregation in U.S. schools is
increasing slowly, continuing a historicreversalfirstapparent in the 1991 enrollment statisticsTable 5
Average Percent White in Schools Attended by
Typical Black or Latino Student, 1970-1994
Year
1970
1980
1986
1991
1994
Blacks
32.0
36.2
36.0
34.4
33.9
Latinos
43.8
35.5
32.9
31.2
30.6
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CLIMBING AFRICAN AMERICAN SEGREGATION IN THE HEARTLAND OF THE OLD
SEGREGATION
The South and the Border State Region are leading the nation in the turn back toward
segregation for black students, because they have been the most desegregated regions and have
the most progress to lose. Ever since the civil rights revolution in the 1960s, the seventeen states
of these two regions (the eleven states of the Old Confederacy and the adjoining six states from
Oklahoma to Delaware which also maintained state-mandated segregation) have been the center
of the least segregated region for black students. The transformation of this huge region, with
more than one-third of the states, from an area of complete educational apartheid to the least
segregated area in the U.S. was a historic accomplishment. That accomplishment is being lost.
Two of the three measures used in this study, show that the South has fallen behind another
region of the country. The Border stateregionis nowreportingan extremely high level of intense
segregation, exceeded only by the Northeast. Theseregionsare clearly slipping back toward their
far more segregated pasts.
In terms of the proportion of black students in desegregated majority white schools, the South
increased dra latically from virtually total segregation in 1960 to 14% of blacks in majority
white schools in 1967, 36% in 1972 and a high of 44% in 1988. Since then the number dropped to
39.2% in 1991 and 36.6% in 1994, losing all the slow progress of the last two decades and
heading back toward the levels of segregation before the cities were desegregated. On the other
measures of segregation the pattern for the region was similar. Its level of intense segregation
increased slightly and the exposure of its black students to white students fell.
The Border stateregion,encompassing the six states from Oklahoma to Delaware which were
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not pan of the old Confederacy but had a system of mandated segregation at the time of the
Brown decision, experienced a more rapid rise in segregation from 1991-1994-95. The Border
State region wentfromhaving 41 % of its black students in majority white schools to 36% in just
three years, a very rapid rare of change. The percent in intensely segregated schools climbed from
33% to 37% and exposure of black students to whites also declined significantly.
The most segregated regions for the past generarion. the Northeast and the Midwest continued
to lead the list this year, except the Borderregionsurpassed the Midwest in terms of intense
segregation. Segregation was increasing gradually for black students in theregionon two of the
three measures. Segregation in the most segregatedregion,the Northeast,remainedabout the
same. Theregionnow has about half of its African American students in schools that are
90-100% nonwhite, far surpassing otherregionsin the level of intense segregation.
TRENDS FOR LATINO STUDENTS
Latino segregation has become substantially more severe than African American segregation by
each of the measures used in this study. In the Northeast, the West, and the South, more than
three-fourths of all Latino students are in predominantly non-white schools, a level of i olation
found for African American students only in the Northeast. We have beenreportingthese trends
continuously for two decades. They are clearlyrelatedto inferior education for Latino students.
Though survey data is limited, the surveys thai have been done tend to show considerable interest
in desegregated education among the Latino family and substantial support for busing if there is
no other way to achieve integration.
All three measures of segregationreportedin tables 4 and 5 show a continuing gradual
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15
national increase in segregation for Latino students. The most significant change comes in the
proportion of students in intensely segregated schools, which rose to 34.8% in 1994. In 1968,
only 23% of Latino students were in these isolated and highly impoverished schools compared to
64% of black students. Now the percentage of Latino students in such schools is up by almost
half and is slightly higher than the level of intense segregation for black students.
REGIONAL SEGREGATION FOR LATINOS.
Since the statistics on Latino segregation were first collected, segregation has always been most
intense in the Northeast, where most Latinos are from Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands.
By 1994, the isolation of Latinos was still intense in the Northeast and was also high in the South
and West. In all three regions, over 75% of Latinos were in schools with majorities of Black or
Latino students (Table 6). The West, deeply shaped by the migration of Mexican Americans and
Mexicans, now isolate Latinos at levels exceeding the national figures for Blacks.
Table 6
Latino Segregation by Region, 1994-95
Percent of Latino Students in Region in Schools
South
Border
Northeast
Midwest
West
0-50%
Minoritv
24.4
59.2
??4
46.9
24.1
50-100%
Minoritv
75.6
40.8
77.6
53.1
75.9
90-100%
Minoritv
38.0
12.3
45.1
21.8
32.1
VS. Total
26.0
74.0
34.8
Source: 1994-95 NCES Common Core of Daia: Harvard Project on Desegregaiion.
See Appendix B for a list of states in each region.
Since Latino students are experiencing far higher dropoutratesthan African Americans and the
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majority of Latino students live in two states where the education officials have adopted policies
ending affirmative action for college admissions, the increasing concentration of students in low
achieving, high-poverty schools where few children prepare competitively for college raise
extremely important issues. If the growing community of Latino students is increasingly isolated
in inferior schools and standards are raised without the schools having the means to meet them,
there could be a vicious cycle of declining opponunity.
RACE AND POVERTY
The relationship between segregation byraceand segregation by poverty in public schools across
the nation is exceptionally strong. The correlation between the percent of black and Latino
enrollments and the percent of students receiving free lunches is an extremely high .72. This
means that when we talk about racially segregated schools, they are very likely to be segregated
by poverty as well.
There is strong and consistent evidence from national and state data from across the U.S. as
well asfromother nations that high poverty schools usually have much lower levels of
educational performance on virtually all outcomes. This is not all caused by the school; family
background is a more powerful influence. Schools with concentrations of low income isolated
children have less prepared children. Even better prepared children can be harmed academically
if they are placed in a school with few other prepared students and. in some cases, in a social
setting where academic achievement is not supported.
School level educational achievement scores in many states and in the nation show a very
strong relation between poverty concentrations and low achievement. This is because high
16/16
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Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise
March 15, 1965
[As delivered in person before a joint session at 9:02 p.m.]
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:
1 speak tonightforthe dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.
I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of
this country, to join me in that cause.
At times history and late meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's
unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a centurv ago at
Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.
There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans.
Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the
long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our
democracy in what is happening here tonight.
For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation
all the majesty of this great Government-the Government of the greatest Nation on earth.
Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to
serve man.
In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate
about great issues; issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time
does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our
growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the
meaning of our beloved Nation.
The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy,
should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have
failed as a people and as a nation.
For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul ?"
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only
an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans—not as Democrats or Republicans-we
are met here as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to befoundedwith a purpose. The great phrases of
that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created
equal"~"govemment by consent of the governed"~"give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are
not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans havefoughtand died
for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their
lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot
be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his
right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he
shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provideforhis family according to his ability and his
e
�shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his
merits as a human being.
To apply any other test-to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of
his birth-is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives
for American freedom.
THE RIGHT TO VOTE
Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to tlourish, it must be rooted in
democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this
country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people.
Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and
should he no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason
which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavilv on us than the
duty we have to ensure that right.
Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply
because they are Negroes.
Every device of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. The Negro citizen
may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or the hour is late, or the official in charge is
absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified
because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application.
And if he manages to fill out an application he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether
he passes this test. He may be ask^l to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex
provisions of State law. And even a'college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.
For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin.
Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious
discrimination. No law that we now have on the books-and I have helped to put three of them there-can
ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it.
In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from
voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend
that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.
GUARANTEEING THE RIGHT TO VOTE
Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote.
The broad principles of that bill will be in the hands of the Democratic and Republican leaders
tomorrow. After they have reviewed it, it will come here formally as a bill. I am grateful for this
opportunity to come here tonight at the invitation of the leadership to reason with my friends, to give
them my views, and to visit with my former colleagues.
I have had prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had intended to transmit to
the clerk tomorrow but which I will submit to the clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss with you
now briefly the main proposals of this legislation,
This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections-Federal, State, and local-which have
been used to deny Negroes the right to vote.
This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which cannot be used, however ingenious the effort,
to flout our Constitution.
.
t
�It will provide tor citizens to be registered by officials of the United States Government if the State
officials refuse to register them.
It will eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote.
Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting.
I will welcome the suggestions from all of the Members of Congress-I have no doubt that I will get
some-on ways and means to strengthen this law and to make it effective. But experience has plainly
shown that this is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution.
To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their own communities; who want to
and who seek to maintain purely local control over elections, the answer is simple:
Open your polling places to all your people.
Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin.
Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.
THE NEED FOR ACTION
There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain.
There is no moral issue. It is wrong-deadly wrong-to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to
vote in this country.
There is no issue of States rights ofhational rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.
I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer.
The last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it contained a provision to protect voting
rights in Federal elections. That civil rights bill was passed after 8 long months of debate. And when that
bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had been
eliminated.
This time, on this issue, there must be no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose.
We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he
may desire to participate in. And we ought not and we cannot and we must not wait another 8 months
before we get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone.
So I ask you to join me in working long hours-nights and weekends, if necessary-to pass this bill. And
I don't make that request lightly. For from the window where I sit with the problems of our country I
recognize that outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many
nations, and the harsh judgment of history on our acts.
WE SHALL OVERCOME
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger
movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes
to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.
Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must
overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
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As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know
how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society.
But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free
tonight.
It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great President of another party, signed
the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.
A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not
equal.
A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept.
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is
right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the
lives of every American.
For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white
families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have
wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?
So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the
past do so at the cost of denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white,
North and South, sharecropper an^city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease.
They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease
and ignorance, we shall overcome.
AN AMERICAN PROBLEM
Now let none of us in any sections look with pridefiil righteousness on the troubles in another section, or
on the problems of our neighbors. There is really no part of America where the promise of equality has
been fully kept. In Buffalo as well as in Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as in Selma, Americans are
struggling for the fruits of freedom.
This is one Nation. What happens in Selma or in Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate concern to every
American. But let each of us look within our own hearts and our own communities, and let each of us
put our shoulder to the wheel to root out injustice wherever it exists.
As we meet here in this peaceful, historic chamber tonight, men from the South, some of whom were at
[wo Jima, men from the North who have carried Old Glory to far comers of the world and brought it
back without a stain on it, men from the East and from the West, are all fighting together without regard
to religion, or color, or region, in Viet-Nam. Men from every region fought for us across the world 20
years ago.
And in these common dangers and these common sacrifices the South made its contribution of honor
and gallantry no less than any other region of the great Republic—and in some instances, a great many of
them, more.
And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this country, from the Great Lakes
to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally together now in
this cause to vindicate the freedom of all Americans. For all of us owe this duty; and I believe that all of
us will respond to it.
Your President makes that request of every American.
4
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PROGRESS THROUGH THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety
and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this Nation. His demonstrations have been
designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform.
He has called upon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us can say that we would
have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy.
For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equality
depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to
violence but on respect for law and order.
There have been many pressures upon your President and there will be others as the days come and go.
But I pledge you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought: in the courts, and in
the Congress, and in the hearts of men.
We must preserve the right of free speech and the right of free assembly. But the right of free speech
does not carry with it, as has been said, the right to holler fire in a crowded theater. We must preserve
the right to free assembly, but free assembly does not carry with it the right to block public
thoroughfares to traffic.
We do have a right to protest, and a right to march under conditions that do not infringe the
constitutional rights of our neighbors. And I intend to protect all those rights as long as I am permitted to
serve in this office.
We will guard against violence, kagwing it strikes from our hands the very weapons which we
seek-progress, obedience to law, and belief in American values.
In Selma as elsewhere we seek and pray for peace. We seek order. We seek unity. But we will not accept
the peace of stifled rights, or the order imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest. For peace cannot
be purchased at the cost of liberty.
v
In Selma tonight, as in every~and we had a good day there~as in every city, we are working for just and
peaceful settlement. We must all remember that after this speech I am making tonight, after the police
and the FBI and the Marshals have all gone, and after you have promptly passed this bill, the people of
Selma and the other cities of the Nation must still live and work together. And when the attention of the
Nation has gone elsewhere they must try to heal the wounds and to build a new community.
This cannot be easily done on a battleground of violence, as the history of the South itself shows. It is in
recognition of this that men of both races have shown such an outstandingly impressive responsibility in
recent days—last Tuesday, again today,
RIGHTS MUST BE OPPORTUNITIES
The bill that I am presenting to you will be known as a civil rights bill. But, in a larger sense, most of the
program I am recommending is a civil rights program. Its object is to open the city of hope to all people
of all races.
Because all Americans just must have the right to vote. And we are going to give them that right.
All Americans must have the privileges of citizenship regardless of race. And they are going to have
those privileges of citizenship regardless of race.
But I would like to caution you and remind you that to exercise these privileges takes much more than
just legal right. It requires a trained mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home, and the chance
to find a job, and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of poverty.
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Of course, people cannot contribute to the Nation if they are never taught to read or write, if their bodies
are stunted from hunger, if their sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just
drawing a welfare check.
So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But we are also going to give all our people, black and
white, the help that they need to walk through those gates.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS GOVERNMENT
My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Tex., in a small Mexican-American school. Few of
them could speak English, and I couldn't speak much Spanish. My students were poor and they often
came to class without breakfast, hungry. They knew even in their youth the pain of prejudice. They
never seemed to know why people disliked them. But they knew it was so, because I saw it in their eyes.
I often walked home late in the afternoon, after the classes were finished, wishing there was more that I
could do. But all I knew was to teach them the little that I knew, hoping that it might help them against
the hardships that lay ahead.
Somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of
a young child.
I never thought then, in 1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me in my
fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students and to help
people like them all over this country.
But now I do have that chance-and I'll let you in on a secret-I mean to use it. And I hope that you will
use it with me.
^
This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied the globe. The might of past empires
is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or
extended dominion.
I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the
President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of taxeaters.
I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of
every citizen to vote in every election.
I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love
among the people of all races and all regions and all parties.
I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.
And so at the request of your beloved Speaker and the Senator from Montana; the majority leader, the
Senator from Illinois; the minority leader, Mr. McCulloch, and other Members of both parties, I came
here tonight-not as President Roosevelt came down one time in person to veto a bonus bill, not as
President Truman came down one time to urge the passage of a railroad bill—but I came down here to
ask you to share this task with me and to share it with the people that we both work for. I want this to be
the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, which did all these things for all these people.
Beyond this great chamber, out yonder in 50 States, are the people that we serve. Who can tell what deep
and unspoken hopes are in their hearts tonight as they sit there and listen. We all can guess, from our
own lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how many problems each little
family has. They look most of all to themselves for their futures. But I think that they also look to each
of us.
Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says~in Latin-"God has favored our
undertaking."
�God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will. But I cannot help_
believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.
NOTE: The address was broadcast nationally.
Return to the LBJ Library Home Page
�S
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Op-Ed Exclusive for The Washington Post
900 words
By Rodn«y E. Slater
U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Forty years ago today, nine African-Aaierican students took a
lonq walk down a short block and integrated Central High School
in L i t t l e Rock, Arkansas.
Because of the significance of that magic Bioment, President
Clinton w i l l be at Central High today to open the door for the
nine nen and women whose courageous walk opened doors for so many
others.
He w i l l be introduced by student body president Fatima
McKendra, an honor student, an aspiring surgeon, an AfricanAmerican.
This exceptional young woman could not have been
student body president in 1957.
Four decades later ve must ask ourselves two questions:
far have we really cone in 40 years?
How
How far have ve l e f t to go?
1 vas tvo-years-old when those brave students walked through
angry, jeering crowds, past armed soldiers to the front door of
Central High.
I t vas not until years later that, as an African-
American teenaget, I had the occasion to go to school with white
children in Mariaruia, Arkansas.
And s t i l l i t vas not easy.
After my school canceled a
program celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King J r . ' s birthday.
02
�Sep-19-97
06:07P
C o l l e e n
&
S c o t t
students staged a s i t - i n .
Djykema
P.
They were chased from the school
grounds by firemen spraying them with high-powered blasts of
water.
The student officers including myself who had been
meeting in the principal's office were taken to the police
station.
We did not go back to school that year.
And when I did
go back, I was not allowed to play sports, a severe penalty for
someone who later vent to college on a football and academic
scholarship.
I t vas a watershed experience for me.
I learned that you
have to take a stand in vhat you believe i s right.
There i s
always a cost. But often there i s a higher cost for not taking a
stand.
The costs did not have to be so high.
got an early start in Arkansas.
Tolerance actually
The University of Arkansas law
and medical schools had been integrated since 1948.
The c i t y of
L i t t l e Rock had already desegregated i t s public buses, i t s zoo,
i t s library, and i t s parks system; and i t s citizens vere poised
to deal with integration in a positive way.
They vere guided by
what President Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our
nature.
But the actions of a few encouraged the lesser angels to
manifest themselves.
Notwithstanding, justice prevailed, the
school vas integrated and Ernest Green, the lone senior of the
L i t t l e Rock Mine, graduated in May
1958.
03
�Sep-19-97 06:07P C o l l e e n & S c o t t
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Djykema
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W« have 4ome a long way since then.
Our economy i s
healthy, unemplegment i s low, and the African-American middle
class has grown ^substantially.
But despite our progress, we are slowed by unfinished
business.
He s t | i l l are wary of those different from us.
Too
often, we talk I^ess to each other and more at each other, i f we
talk at a l l .
AsS terrible as things were 40 years ago, at least
people knew exaqjtly where they stood.
Things vere out in the
open and on the'iftable. Ironically, racism clad in a hooded sheet
was much more identifiable than much of the racism of today,
which often veasfs a smile and a business suit.
Granted, pijjoblems 40 years ago vere more blatant. What ve
face today i s mdjre subtle, but s t i l l insidious.
We get a glimpse
vhen we hear ab^jut demeaning conversations in corporate
boardrooms. Or *|hen affirmative action rules are l i f t e d at state
universities an^ minority enrollment.plummets. Or vhen academics
and v r i t e r s f a l | back on discredited arguments to j u s t i f y
persistent stereotypes.
And tensions nov go beyond the conflict betveen black and
white: the v i l e (burning of churches, a resurgence of antiSemitism, and h o s t i l i t y toward nev immigrants.
But ve hav^ to learn to live together, because the face of
America is;changing.
Today in Havaii, everyone i s a minority.
P.
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bLK
06:07P
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Colleen
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Soon this w i l l be true of California.
I
6-'7
And 40 years from now,
there w i l l be no majority race in America.
We can look at s t a t i s t i c s and know vhat America w i l l look
l i k e in the 21st century.
But we have to look inside ourselves
I
to determine what America w i l l be like in the 21st century.
The President i s Asking a l l Americans to join him in a
national conversation about race to face one another honestly
across lines that s t i l l divide us.
Clearly, nov i s the time for
honest dialogue, the t|.me to build a society that recognizes the
vorth of a l l people, a^id honors the dignity of every person.
I
President ClintonI wants us to renev the attack on racism on
two fronts: education and economics.
Until every American has
real economic opportunity and f i r s t - r a t e educational
opportunity,
there w i l l be disparities that w i l l look like r a c i a l
discrimination, whethe^- they are or not.
Melba P. Bealls, one of the L i t t l e Rock Nine, put i t best:
The task that remains i s to cope with our interdependence to see
ourselves reflected in! every other human being and to respect and
i
honor our differences.
Laws can change institutions, but they cannot change what i s
in people*« hearts.
Ahd racism i s a disease of the heart.
Can ve become one; America and s t i l l appreciate our
diversity?
I t i s a b i ^ challenge, but also a big
opportunity.
�Vu.
�SEP 23 '97 02:44PM LAW OFFICES & C C
CR
P. 2/3
LAW OFFICES
OP
WILLIAM L . TAYLOR
2000 M STREET, N.W.. Sft- 400
WASHWOTON, D C 20036
WLLIAM L. TAYLOR
TELE PHONE
OIANNE M. PICHE*
(202)659-5565
MEMORANDUM
To:
Melanne Verveer
From:
Bill Taylor
Date:
September 23, 1997
Re:
A Suggestion for the President's Little Rock Speech
It seems to me that the commemoration In Little Rock will give President
Clinton an opportunity to make a couple of cogent points about the current attacks
on the judges and judicial nominees and the need for an independent judiciary.
t) The Independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of Law. The Supreme
Court's unanimous decision after an extraordinary summer hearing in 1958 not to
postpone the desegregation of Little Rock public schools because of "extreme
public hostility" was the most important affirmation of the rule of law in this
century. The Court said "Marburv v. Madison... declared the basic principle that
the federal judiciary is supreme in the exposition of the law of the Constitution and
that principle has ever since been respected by this Court and the Country as a
permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system. It follows that
the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by the Court in the
Brown case is the Supreme Law of the land...Every state legislator and judicial
officer is solely committed by oath...'to support this Constitution'" Cooper v.
Aaron. 358 U.S. 1,18 (1958).
Yet today, almost 40 years later, some members of Congress would
impeach federal judges who carry out in good conscience their duty to interpret the
Constitution and some members would delay indefinitely the confirmation of
judicial nominees who do not pledge to interpret the Constitution in precisely the
way the member wants it interpreted. These tactics threaten the independence of
the judiciary and indeed threaten the rule of law that has been respected from
Marburv through Little Rock and to this day .
•ADMITTED W MARYUAND ONLY
�SEP 23 '97 02:44PM LAW OFFICES & C C
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2) Judicial Indenendence and the Rule of Law are not partisan matters. In
the Little Rock case, the Court took the extraordinary step of having each justice
individually sign the Court's opinion. The Court was almost equally divided
between justices who had been Democrats and those who had been Republicans.
It included such respected figures as Earl Warren, Harold Burton and John Harlan.
What is needed today is a similar bipartisan coalition of people who are prepared to
defend the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. All of us, Democrats
and Republicans, liberal, moderates and conservatives, can name court decisions
that we think are dead wrong. But there are appropriate ways to seek the
correction of error and inappropriate ways. Impeachment threats and nomination
delays are inappropriate; worse, they threaten the Courts' role as the bulwark of
our liberties.
I hope this is of some help.
cc:
Judy Winston
�Sep-17-97
03:27P
Bonny
Wol-f
•w^(X)nimuiiications.fax
Prom:
tel 202 546-4118
To:
Fax No:
f a x ^ 0 2 543-4055
P .Ol
�. Sep-17-97 03:27P Bonny W o l f
S e p - 1 2 - 9 7 OS: Z I P Co 1 1 e o n & S c o t t Oykania
Memo t o :
From:
Re-
Mr. Secretary
Scott
Background i n f o on Fatima McKindra
We thought a l i t t l e background i n f o on Fatima, who w i l l be
i n t r o d u c i n g you at Central High on Monday and the President on the
25th, might be h e l p f u l .
She's the f i r s t black female t o be e l e c t e d student body p r e s i d e n t
and t h i s summer she was votod the outstanding student at a program a i
MIT.
She says going t o MIT was a " r e a l l y fun experience." She " r e a l l y
l i k e d the independence" of being away from home and i s having a hard
time r e - a d j u s t i n g .
Her f u t u r e plans i n c l u d e going t o a s m a l l , out-of-statet c o l l e g e
i n the South.
She plans t o do pre-med and wants t o be a surgeon.
Her
f a v o r i t e movie- "Robo Cop I " , and she e s p e c i a l l y l i k e s the opening
scene i n which a surgeon, a f t e r removing a b r a i n from a body t h a t i s
t o go i n t o Robo Cop, says: l e t ' s go t o lunch." That was "a r e a l l y
cool t h i n g t o say."
H
She says t h i n g s at Central High are d i f f e r e n t today than they
were 40 years ago.
"We don't have the animosity and the h a t r e d t h a t
was once t h e r e . " Progress has been made, she adds.
"Central High i s r e a l l y a good r e f l e c t i o n of l i f e because of the
diversity.
You l e a r n how t o deal w i t h everyone," i n c l u d i n g parents,
students and teachera. She notes the school i a now about 60 percent
b l a c k and the remainder white, Hispanic and Asian. She also says
Lhtsre are l l f o r e i g n exchange students ac r.he school t h i s year
Asked what she'd l i k e you t o t a l k about, she r e p l i e d , w i t h o u t
hesitation-, your thoughts on the c e l e b r a t i o n ; what i t might mean t o
America; how i t a f f e c t s your j o b ; your connection t o Ernie Green,- your
personal remembrances of the p e r i o d ; and what you have done a t DOT t o
help students.
9/12/97
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Sep-17-97
03:27P
Bonny
Wolf
REMARKS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION RODNEY E. SLATER
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
SEPTEMBER 15,1997
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
(Note: You are part of an hour-long afternoon assembly before the full student body 1,800 students. You will be introduced by Fatima McKendra, student body president)
Thank you Fatima. I'm honored to be up here today with you. You represent exactly the
kind of achievement this town will celebrate for the next 2 weeks.
In September of 1957 - long before any of you were bom - 9 African-American students
took a long walk down a short block and integrated Central High School When they
crossed that threshold, Little Rock and America - left one world and entered another
This new world is one in which Fatima McKendra - an honor student, an aspiring
surgeon, a fan of Robocop movies - can be the president of the student body. Just who
you'd expect to lead the student body at one of the nation's outstanding high schools But
in 1957, the student body president would not have been an African-American
It didn't happen fast. I was 2 when Daisy Bates led those 9 African-American students
through jeering crowds, past armed soldiers to the front door of Central High. 13 years
later - 1 3 years later - in Marianna, Arkansas, I went to school with white children for the
first time
And still it wasn't easy. We were to hold a program celebrating Martin Luther King's
birthday. Two days before the program, we were told it was canceled. Students staged a
sit in and I met with other class officers in the principal's office. I will never forget looking
out the window and seeing students running, chased byfiremenspraying them with highpowered blasts of water The student officers were taken to the police station.
We didn't go back to school that year And when we did go back, we were barred from
playing sports. Too many absences, they said. It was a watershed experience for me I
learned that sometimes you have to take a stand for what you believe in And there's
always a cost. But there's often a higher cost for not taking a stand.
That is the lesson of the integration of Central High School
What happened here 40 years ago was so significant, such a magic moment in history that
President Clinton will be here next week to open the door for the 9 men and women
whose courageous walk to school that day opened so many other doors. They took a
stand, they suffered the consequences, and because of what they did, the world is a better
place
Melba Pattillo wrote this about walking into Central High that day. " I felt proud and sad
at the same time. Proud that I lived in a country that would go this far to bring justice to a
Little Rock girl like me, but sad that they had to go to such great lengths." She was 16
What's different about Arkansas today and 40 years ago is that we now realize that we are
a community. Unless we all do well, none of us do well.
1
03
�Sep-17-97 03:28P
Bonny
Wolf
Just look at Congress Today we have the most diverse Congress ever. And it's across the
board - not just African-Americans but women, Hispanics, Asians.
Some think the Central High story gave Little Rock a black eye. But tolerance actually got
an early start in Little Rock.
How many of you have heard of Brown vs. The Board of Education? Then you know it
was the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision striking down racial segregation in public
schools as unconstitutional
Within a week of the Brown decision, Arkansas was 1 of 2 southern states to announce it
would immediately comply with the new law. The University of Arkansas law school had
been integrated since 1949. As a matter of fact, 40 years ago Arkansas' law school had as
many African-American students as the University of Texas law school has in its entering
class today. By the time of the Brown decision, the city had already desegregated its
public buses, its zoo, its library and its parks system.
That is what I see as the most stunning thing about the Little Rock story. The city was
actually poised to deal with the issue in a positive way, but the actions of a few
encouraged the lesser angels of our nature to manifest themselves. So people like Daisy
Bates in Little Rock and Rosa Parks in Birmingham had to take a stand. And we are all
better off because they did
Today, we're enjoying significant prosperity as a nation. Under President Clinton's
leadership, we have begun to narrow income inequality. Unemployment is at one of the
lowest points it has been since the civilrightsmovement began. Last week, both the
House and the Senate agreed with President Clinton that we should continue
transportation's affirmative action program to provide opportunities for minority- and
women-owned businesses. We are reaching out to a million students, getting them
interested in transportation careers.
Yet despite our programs, this is a time when we are talking less to each other and more
at each other
The hostility hides reality. The face of America is changing. Today in Hawaii, everyone is
a minority. Soon this will be true of California. And 40 years from now, the same will be
true for all of America
We can look at statistics and know what America will look like in the 21st century. But
we have to look inside ourselves to determine what America will be like in the 21 st
century.
The President has asked all Americans to join him in a national conversation about race —
to face one another honestly across the lines that divide us. Clearly, now is the time for
honest dialogue. The time to build a society that recognizes the worth all people, and the
value of every person
I urge you all to go hear the President when he speaks at your school next week
We are extraordinarily lucky to have as President a man who cares as passionately about
human rights as Bill Clinton does. This son of Little Rock wouldn't attend segregated
P.04
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Sep-17-97
03:28P
Bonny
Wolf
campaign events when he was running for governor. He encouraged students at the
University of Arkansas law school - including myself - to believe that African-Americans
could make a difference.
And today, the President's message is that if we are going to prepare America for the
great challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, we do not have a person to waste
We will either succeed together or fail separately.
Ernest Green, who I have the privilege, of calling afriend,was the lone senior among the
Little Rock 9. A decade later, he told another graduating class that each generation has an
obligation. His generation's was to break the color barrier Theirs, he told them, was to
close the economic barriers that separate the races
That is your obligation — as individuals in your personal lives as well as in your lives as
citizens and members of this community - to secure the place of all people in a highly
competitive, rapidly changing world.
We mark important events by anniversaries and commemorations - they give us an
opportunity to see how far we've come and a chance to look at how far we have yet to
go. I want to thank and commend the organizers of this commemoration for allowing this
to be a really open dialogue - a way to heal old wounds and meet new challenges.
05
��Withdrawal/Redaction Marker
Clinton Library
DOCUMENT NO.
AND TYPE
004. letter
DATE
SUBJECT/TITLE
Stuart F. Feldman to Michael Waldman; RE: Address and phone
numbers [partial] (1 page)
09/12/1997
RESTRICTION
P6/b(6)
COLLECTION:
Clinton Presidential Records
Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
OA/Box Number: 14538
FOLDER TITLE:
Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
2006-0469-F
dbl970
RESTRICTION CODES
Presidential Records Act -144 U.S.C. 2204(a)]
Freedom of Information Act - |S U.S.C. 552(b)]
PI National Security Classified Information 1(a)(1) of the PRA]
P2 Relating to the appointment to Federal office 1(a)(2) of the PRA]
P3 Release would violate a Federal statute 1(a)(3) of the PRA]
P4 Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential commercial or
financial information 1(a)(4) of the PRA)
P5 Release would disclose confidential advice between the President
and his advisors, or between such advisors |a)(5) of the PRA]
P6 Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy 1(a)(6) of the PRA]
b(l) National security classified information 1(b)(1) of the FOIA]
b(2) Release would disclose internal personnel rules and practices of
an agency 1(b)(2) of the FOIA]
b(3) Release would violate a Federal statute 1(b)(3) of the FOIAj
b(4) Release would disclose trade secrets or confidential or financial
information 1(b)(4) of the FOIA]
b(6) Release would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of
personal privacy 1(b)(6) of the FOIA]
b(7) Release would disclose information compiled for law enforcement
purposes 1(b)(7) of the FOIA]
b(8) Release would disclose information concerning the regulation of
financial institutions 1(b)(8) of the FOIA]
b(9) Release would disclose geological or geophysical information
concerning wells 1(b)(9) of the FOIA]
C. Closed in accordance with restrictions contained in donor's deed
of gift.
PRM. Personal record misfile defined in accordance with 44 U.S.C.
2201(3).
RR. Document will be reviewed upon request.
�STUART F. FELDMAN
September 12, 1997
Mr. Michael Waldman
Chief Speechwriting
The White House
1600 Penna. Ave. N.W.
Washington DC 20500
Re: Using King Memorial i n L i t t l e Rock Speech
Dear Mike:
This w i l l resume our c o n v e r s a t i o n o f l a s t f a l l and w i n t e r . I
understand the President i s making a major c i v i l r i g h t s speech i n
L i t t l e Rock on September 25. Now t h a t t h e King Memorial a u t h o r i t y
i s law, I hope t h a t President C l i n t o n can spur a c t i o n on i t , by
addressing t h e importance o f t h i s symbol. Such a memorial w i t h
the words o f the " I Have a Dream" speech on i t can have the same
h e a l i n g e f f e c t t h a t t h e Vietnam Memorial had.
As you know. King's words should be read i n c l o s e connection
w i t h President L i n c o l n ' s Second Inaugural and Gettysburg Address.
Then v i s i t o r s w i l l ask why d i d i t take a hundred years t o c a r r y
out t h e e n t i r e t y o f t h e C i v i l Rights Amendments? Then they should
wonder what t h a t f a i l u r e means f o r our c o u n t r y today, and a c t i n
the s p i r i t t h a t the President advocates.
U n f o r t u n a t e l y the p r o v i s i o n a u t h o r i z i n g the memorial was
d e f i c i e n t and we must get an amendment t o t h e law making i t
p o s s i b l e t o put i t near the L i n c o l n Memorial. A l e t t e r r e q u e s t i n g
such l e g i s l a t i o n i s s a i d t o be i n S e c r e t a r y Babbit's o f f i c e
a w a i t i n g 0MB clearance.
Andrew Young i s expected t o p l a y a key r o l e i n f u n d r a i s i n g
f o r the Alpha Phi Alpha f r a t e r n i t y , which i s a u t h o r i z e d t o b u i l d
the Memorial.
Thank you f o r your c o n s i d e r a t i o n . I have b a r e l y been i n
Washington and hope t o meet you when I spend more time t h e r e .
S i n c e r e l y yours,
S t u a r t F. Feldman
Attachments ( 3 )
Clinton Library Photocopy
�January 8, 1997
•
MEMORANDUM
N.ATIONAL
LOVMITUTION
CENTER
T
0 :
Concerned Government Officials
From:
Stuart F. Feldman, Senior Vice President
RE:
Presidential Support for a Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial,
at the Reflecting Pool, is Crucial
I have been working to advance an idea that would place our nation's ideals for civil rights and
equality squarely before the nation. I hope you might consider supporting the idea in discussing
presidential speeches for the coming birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and in the State of
the Union message.
President Clinton signed the Omnibus National Parks Act in November. That act authorizes, among
other things, the establishment of a Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument to be constructed by the
Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, but is necessarily silent as to location. Presidential encouragement for
its placement at the Reflecting Pool would be powerful. Site decisions go through various planning
commissions, and then to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.
have sought since 1988, a King Memorial situated near the Lincoln Memorial. Visitors could read
Lincoln's Gettysburg and Second Inaugural addresses engraved on his memorial and then Dr.
King's "I Have a Dream" speech similarly engraved. They would then ask themselves why achieving
equal rights for all Americans took 200 years (100 years from speech to speech)? Just as important,
they would also ask themselves how do we proceed to achieve equal rights for all Americans now?
1.
The racial divide remains severe. A proper King/Civil Rights Monument at the
Reflecting Pool could have the same positive healing effect the Vietnam Memorial
has shed.
2.
Presidential emphasis would attack the prejudices that drive us apart. It would build
upon Dr. King's wonderfully expressed hymn to national unity.
You should know that in the past Mrs. Coretta King and Jesse Helms opposed the memorial idea.
It passed this time, I presume, because she could not ask a Republican Committee Chairman to
oppose the legislation, as she did when the Democrats controlled the House. By her silence, she
appears to have made peace with the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. I have been working with them
since my attached op-ed piece ran in the Washington Post.
The President's record of championing civil rights, since he was a very young man, is such that I
am hoping to appeal to his great instincts. Many thanks for your consideration.
THE BOURSE • SUITE 560 • 111 S. INDEPENDENCE MALL EAST • PHILADELPHIA, PA 19106 • TEL: 215-923-0004 • FAX: 215-923-1749
�Weather
Today: Sunny, hazy, hot. humid.
High 96. Low 78. Wind 6-12 mph.
VMusday: Sunny, hazy, chance of
afternoon thunderstorm. High 96.
Yatttrday: AQI: 110. Temp,
range: 77-93. Details on Page B2.
112TH YEAR
••••
tyittgtat
No. 232
TUESDAY, JULY 25,1989
Reprinted in:
The Atlanta
Constitution
Cleveland Plain Dealer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Stuart F. Feldman
A King Memorial for Washington
Twenty five years after the signing of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is time to
construct a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. The words of his immortal "I Have a
Dream" speech should be carved in stone at a
site by the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln
Memorial. People who go there to read
Lincoln's thoughts would be able to ponder
the truths that King spoke from atop the
Lincoln Memorial's steps nearly a century
after Lincoln's assassination.
Some will argue that King already has his
day and that that is enough for one person.
But just as the Vietnam Memorial by its
physical presence, has played a central role
in easing the problems of individual veterans
and the nation's divisions over the Vietnam
War, so the problems of individual blacks and
the nation's long, tragic division over race
would yield in part to a healing King Memorial. It would commemorate not only Martin
Luther King Jr. but also his many predecessors, colleagues and followers in thefightfor
equality.
We've already missed too many opportunities to pay homage to King. When his death
was announced on the radio, I asked my boss
at the Transportation Department to call the
White House and propose that the body be
brought to the Capitol to lie in state as the
American hero he was.
A pressured aide answered with words to
the effect that "We've already taken care of
it—Hubert's going to the funeral in Atlanta."
The next day as I watc
smoke i
j from
large parts of the burning Capital, I
dered if this would have haooeneri if Kinir I
and white Americans waiting to pay their
respects.
A memorial to those who died in the civil
rights movement is being dedicated this fall
in Montgomery, Ala. Yet, despite the
strength of the Montgomery design (by Maya Lin, who also did the Vietnam Memorial)
there is no substitute in the national consciousness for Washington recognition.
An architectural competition like that used
for the Vietnam Memorial should be employed to obtain the best plan. Sen. Paul
Sarbanes of Maryland and 13 cosponsors
have introduced legislation for a memorial, as
have Walter Fauntroy and 50 colleagues in
the House. The Sarbanes bill has been reported by the Rules Committee and is now
on the Senate calendar for action. Alpha Phi
Alpha, the nation's largest black fraternity,
which requested the legislation, will "coordinate" the design and conduct a public fund
raising drive that will pay all construction
costs. Now is the tin.e to act, for we continue
to struggle with the problem of race in the
country and with an underclass that is alienated from society. A memorial will inspire us
to renew our efforts
The chief judge of the South Carolina
Court of Appeals, Alex Sanders, was quoted
recently in V. S. Naipaul's book "A Turn in
the South," as saying:
"It is a wondrous thing. If you had toid me
in the fifties and early sixties that in the very
near future we were going to have an integrated society, I wouldn't have believed you.
I thought even I
it might be a hundred
s in coming. It may even be divine, the
cl
te that ha* rnmc ahruir—I Hnn't Unnw
sudden saw that it was wrong. And that is
miraculous
"
It is that "wondrous thing" the King Memorial would keep alive. While no one can be
sure of divine intervention, the courage,
integrity and peaceful methods of King and
his allies Democratic and Republican, and the
many black people, young and old, who
participated, despite real dangers to them
and their white allies, deserve our nation's
appreciation.
The process created by our Constitution
finally, under the spur of King's eloquence
and dedication and that of his fellow leaders,
worked to ensure equality before the law.
Their efforts brought an end to governmentauthorized segregation, and made black voting possible in large areas of the South where
blacks had been for all practical purposes
excluded from voting, that most fundamental
democratic right.
The nation has yet to arrive at the America King described in his '1 Have a Dream"
speech:
"Now is the time to rise from the dark and
desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit
path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift
our nation from the quicksands of racial
injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood."
But however discouraging the rate of
progress sometimes has been, especially for
those in the inner cities, the struggle goes
on. Congress should authorize now a site for
a King Memorial on the Reflecting Pool so
that aU Americans ever after can admire and
contemplate King's words and c i and act
on t!
�-
i
JAN-31-1997
17:31
FROM
TO
DAVID E. BONIOR
MICHIGAN
912159231749
P.02
H-J07.TH«CUTO
WA*MMaT<ON.DC30S1!
002)225^130
(Office of tf?£ JBcmocrattc W)ip
January 30, 1997
Mr. Erskme Bowles
Chief of Staff
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Erskine:
Since 1989,1 have been working on an effort to get the words of Martin Luther
King's " I Have a Dream" speech carved in stone near the Lincoln Memorial I believe
that this would be an important reminder of the ideals of equality and justice that we are
still struggling to achieve in America today.
We have made significant progress on this project. The recently enacted Omnibus
National Parks Act authorizes the establishment of a Martin Luther King Jr. Monument to
be constructed by the Alpha Phifraternity,but is necessarily silent as co its location. Site
decisions go through various planning commissions and thenfinallyto the Secretary of
the Interior. The encouragement of the President in designating a site near the Reflecting
Pool would give great momentum to this project.
I was greatly moved by the President's references to Martin Luther King's stirring
of our nation's conscience in the Inaugural Address and I truly believe that progress in die
area of racial understanding could be a lasting legacy of this AdministratioiL I hope you
would consider mentioning this worthy project to the President and suggest that he nuke
some reference to it in his State of the Union speech next week.
1 have enclosed a copy of an op ed piece by Stuart Feldman (a Mend I have known
for many yearsfromour woric on Vietnam Veterans issues, including the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial) which will provide you some additional background.
Thank you for your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
David E. Bonior
Democratic Whip
TOTAL P. a;
�THE WHITE
WASH
HOUSE
INGTON
September 22, 1997
MEMORANDUM FOR:
Michael Waldman
FROM:
Thurgood Marshall, J r . f V ^
Anne McGuire
SUBJECT:
Central High Speech
This is a great idea from HUD for Central High speech consideration.
�SEP-e2-9? 1 6 : 1 8
FROM:OCR FAX 67067
202-456-7067
TO:OCR FRX 66704
PAGE:02
U.S. OEF ApTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
THE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON. D.C. 20410-0001
September 22, 1997
MEMORANDUM
FOR:
ERSKINE B O W i E S . CHIEF OF STAFF
CC:
ANN LEWIS, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
MIKE McCURRfyl; PRESS SECRETARY
SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT
BRUCE R E E D , DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER
JUDITH W I N S i m DIRECTOR OF THE RACE INITIATIVE
S Y L V I A M A T H E R S , DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
THURGOOD M,\RSHALL. SECRETARY TO THE CABINET
FROM:
S E C R E T A R Y ANDREW CUOMO
SUBJ:
HUD'S FAIR HOUSING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY INITIATIVE
In January 1994, the President issued an Executive Order (Executive Order 12892) establishing the
"President's Fair Housing Council" and naming the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as
Chair of that Council.
In this context, we at HOD have developed a Fair Housing for the 21st Century initiative which
is ready to support the Presid< M's "One America" initiative - and may be particularly relevant for
the President's upcoming spec cl in Arkansas this Thursday.
jji
Housing Discrimination: The Raciam That Hits Americana Where Thev Live
Nearly 30 years after this na'ion passed the Fair Housing Act, Americans of color seeking a new home
are still the victims of h ousiijig discrimination — perhaps the most persistent remnant of racism in
America. These Americans ore being shut out of the American dream and that is wrong. As we
approach the 21" Century, we must have zero tolerance for discrimination. How can we become One
America when we cannot
become one neighborhood?
�SEP-22-97 16:18
FROM:OCfl FRX 67067
12=49 •
202-456-7067
TO:OCR FRX 66704
PRGE:03
NO.248 P003
Sometimes housing discrimi laiion is subtle. Americans of color are told there are no homes available
when, in fact, there are. homt s available. They are told there is an expensive security deposit when, in
$
fact, there is no security d p | sit. They are literally steered into neighborhoods across town instead of
e <>
where they want to live.
Other times housing discrim nation is flagrant, ugly, and violent. When Americans of color try to move
into their new home, their n€ W neighbors welcome them not with warm greetings — but with racial
slurs, crosses burning on the; r front lawns, bullets shooting in their windows, and death threats for them
and their children.
Fair Homing for the 21" Centurv
HUD s Fair Housing foi Hie 2lst Century initiative is a three prong plan designed to promote
minority homeownership opportjunities by addressing The discriminatory obstacles that all too often impede
homeownership opportunities, i tcjluding:
At the President's request, HUD will double the number of civil rights enforcement actions by the
year 2000 - from 1,08S to : ,170. HUD will do this by forging working relationships within the
federal government (e.g. U$DA , DOJ, VA), by cooperating and supporting not-for-profit fair
housing advocacy groups and by making the pursuit of civil rights housing cases a Secretarial
priority. Toward that end. we will begin in the coming weeks announcing a series of enforcement
actions against egregious vie lators of housing civil rights law.
Aggressively pursuing and rooting-out race-based housing discrimination in the marketplace, such as
predatory lending, insurance scams and exclusionary zoning practices This form of housing
discrimination is much more subtle and complex than the type of cases HUD traditionally pursues but it
stands as one of the most pernicious obstacles to improving minority homeownership rates.
Launching a Public Educatic n Campaign in the spring of 1998 - the 30-year anniversary of the passing
of the Fair Housing Act designed to promote minority homeownership opportunities.
I believe announcing the doubling of enforcement actions could be a valuable piece of the President s
speech in Little Rock. My staff Mil follow up on this issue.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Michael Waldman
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Michael Waldman was Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting from 1995-1999. His responsibilities were writing and editing nearly 2,000 speeches, which included four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. From 1993 -1995 he served as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination.</p>
<p>The collection generally consists of copies of speeches and speech drafts, talking points, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, handwritten notes, articles, clippings, and presidential schedules. A large volume of this collection was for the State of the Union speeches. Many of the speech drafts are heavily annotated with additions or deletions. There are a lot of articles and clippings in this collection.</p>
<p>Due to the size of this collection it has been divided into two segments. Use links below for access to the individual segments:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+1">Segment One</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+2">Segment Two</a></p>
Creator
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Michael Waldman
Office of Speechwriting
Date
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1993-1999
Identifier
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2006-0469-F
Extent
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Segment One contains 1071 folders in 72 boxes.
Segment Two contains 868 folders in 66 boxes.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Little Rock C.H.S. [Central High School] [3]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 62
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36404"> Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763296">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F Segment 2
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
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William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
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Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
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Preservation-Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
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6/3/2015
Source
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7763296
42-t-7763296-20060469F-Seg2-062-004-2015