Education
Melba Beals' autobiography concentrates very much on her school experiences. The importance of education is therefore an issue in understanding the source itself.
Desegregation of education can be traced back to efforts in the late nineteenth century to provide educational opporttunities for blacks. However, the most important event in the context of the events at Little Rock was the Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education, which was delivered on May 17, 1954. This court decision, as Harvie Wilkinson III writes, 'marked...a reversal of position towards the Negro of our three branches of government'1. However, as landmark a decision as this case was, influential members of the administration did not publicly support it. President Eisenhower said he 'resented' the Brown decision2.
The Brown case was a desire for 'opportunity in the schools' according to Wilkinson3. This opportunity had been denied blacks in the American way of life, even after the abolition of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War. Not only was this an educational opportunity denied, but also self-respect. And this self-respect, evident through equal treatment, was denied them4. The loss of educational opportunity prolonged the inequalities that separated whites from blacks, aside from skin colour. The Brown case pointed out that the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Plessy vs. Ferguson case of 1896 in favour of the 'separate but equal' policy as untenable constitutionally. Indeed, the lack of educational opportunities often meant it was usually "separate and unequal". This philosophy of 'separate but equal' is examined in the essay on desegregation.
Although the focus of Central High has been on the Brown case and its implications for desegregation with regards to African-Americans, as the Western Regional School Desegregation Projects writes, 'little attention to the added complexities encountered by brown minorities and by other groups'5. Education inequalities and denial of opportunities are not strictly limited to African-Americans, but in the case of Little Rock Central High, the battleground was for African-American children, nine of them, the "Little Rock Nine", of which Melba Beals' was one of them.
Integration of the education system even after Little Rock has proved difficult. Training papers are being written specifically by the National Education Association and the code by which it exists by makes interesting reading. Being written in 1929, the code predates the move for desegregation by almost three decades. A policy document was put out in 1974 in order to put into place a desegregation transitional policy for teachers.
Education is a key factor in American
society and the desegregation of the system has caused widespread ripples in
American society and government as can be seen in the Federal
versus States essay.
A time line of events between the Brown
case and the Central High saga can be seen here.
1 J. Harvie Wilkinson III, From Brown
to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration: 1954-1978, Oxford
University Press, New York, 1979, pp. 23-24.
2 Ibid., p. 24.
3 Ibid., p. 27.
4 Ibid., p. 28.
5 Kathleen Smith (ed.),
Desegregation/Integration: Planning for School Change. A Training Program
for Intergroup Educators, National Education Association, 1974, p. 11.
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