[Opinion] 50th Anniversary of “Brown Trial”

It is hard to imagine now, but several decades ago in America, whites and blacks used their own segregated restaurants and train station waiting rooms. At every bathroom in every building, the sign of “Colored and White” caught the people’s attention much more than that of a “Man and Woman” sign. As a matter of course, bathrooms for blacks were in very poor condition. In 1951, Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas attended a primary school for black people in third year, which is located 1.6 kilometers from her house past a railway. She wanted to attend the primary school for whites, which is closer to her house, just seven blocks away, but was turned down by the schoolmaster.

Her father, Oliver Brown, with the help of NAACP, an organization for colored people’s interests and rights, filed a suit. At the trial, “Brown vs. Topeka Educational Committee,” the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the “practice of segregation in a public school infringes upon the Constitution.” It was May 17, 1954. It reversed the decision of the Supreme Court 58 years earlier which allowed “segregated, but equal” public facilities. Several days before, the Americans celebrated the 50th anniversary of this decision. The fact that Americans celebrate the day of the decision as a commemorative day shows their respect of the law.

The resistance against racism expanded from schools to bus and restaurants. In December 1955, at Montgomery, Alabama, 42-year-old tailor Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus, which was exclusively for whites at the time. Refusing the urging driver’s intimidation to move to the black’s seats at the rear of the bus, she was locked up in a cell. Exasperated blacks started to boycott the use of bus, and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. led the campaign in this movement. In 1960, at Greens Brougham, the black university students carried out a sit-in demonstration to demand the right for blacks to use the whites-exclusive restaurants.

The people’s rights law was established in 1964 which abolished discrimination on the basis of race, skin color, religion, and nationality. Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, which was the spot of segregation, has become a national memorial. At the road where the police officer forced Parks to get off the bus, the sign of “Rosa Parks Avenue” was set up. Does this really mean the settlement of segregation? The press points out that the government doesn’t spend more money on the poor black children’s education than for others. Still, the African-American students are not fully afforded educational opportunities from the government.

Hong Kwon-hee Correspondent in New York konihong@donga.com