A Right To Learn

Topeka, Kansas: one of the stops on our way back East last week. It was still frosty and cold when we located the Brown v. Board of Education National Park in a downtown neighborhood, not far from the state capitol building.

It's a stop Arthur put on the agenda, even though we knew the site wasn't opening for the day until later that morning.

Brown v Board Of Education National Historical Park
Displays at this site have been flagged
by the Trump administration due to mentions of "equity"

Brown v. Board of Education was a class action suit filed by 13 Topeka parents and their 20 children against Topeka's Board of Education that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It challenged the "Separate But Equal" legal doctrine. Under the doctrine, if 'equal' facilities were provided to each, services could be segregated by race. Of course, the myth that services provided to African Americans were 'equal' was just that - a myth. Almost without exception, black students went to inferior buildings, were provided outdated and inferior materials and taught by teachers who were paid much less than their white counterparts.

from the National Park Service brochure picked up at the site:

"By 1952, NAACP brought to the Supreme Court four of the five cases involving school segregation that were consolidated as Oliver L. Brown et al v. The Board of Education of Topeka et al. Arguing before the high court, Thurgood Marshall held that the racial classifications were inherently unconstitutional, as were separate educational facilities to accommodate such classifications The unanimous decision handed down on May 27, 1954, was one of the most significant in U.S. history ... it opened the modern civil rights movement for African Americans and laid the foundation for similar movements by other minority groups."

Though we didn't have time to visit the museum, our time walking the grounds and reading placards brought home the inequalities buried in our country's history.

And yet, under our current President and his team, there is a defined goal to change how Black history is presented in national park sites and museums. New federal directives ("Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History") target parks, museums and monuments. 

This mural covers a large warehouse adjacent to the park,
a colorful and moving reminder of all that has gone before

The Organization of American Museums has responded:  "The effort as outlined is divorced from the realities of an evidence-based, comprehensive telling of the U.S. past, and is part of an aggressive push to flatten American history into a narrowly conceived, unrepresentative, and simplified story... Americans consistently say they want a full, honest and unvarnished presentation of our nation's history. This White House enterprise, therefore, is an affront to individuals across a wide spectrum of the American public who treasure their right to learn and think for themselves."

In the quiet of the weekday morning,
echoes of footfalls on this
pathway to a brighter future