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December 08, 2003

Because We Can Never Get Enough Thurgood

NPR has got the scoops today.

Fifty years ago today, the Supreme Court heard final arguments in the landmark desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education. The following May, the court ruled that separate schools for black and white children were unconstitutional.

Now if I remember correctly, Harold Cruse states that the Civil Rights Movement was 50 years late and zillions of dollars short. A generation before Brown, the opportunity for Separate But Equal, was about to pass the Senate. According to Cruse, a huge difference would have been made in the advancement of the African American middle class had a particular piece of legislation passed Congress in the years immediately following the failure of Reconstruction. The kinds of gains we have seen post-Brown with respect to educational equality and all that follows would have been achieved in the days before massive European immigration. It would have meant all the difference to the complexion and character of America.

By the time Thurgood was on the case, the opportunity had been squandered and integration was the best we could do. The truer competition for the spoils of America could have been won before the World Wars and Depression. The retardation of the Southern Economy would have been... Well, it's a fascinating study.

When I moved to the South in 1995 I was studying the possibilities of rejecting the dream of integration. Like many, I entertained the ideas of Black Capitalism in the 'Black Mecca'. Those days will not come any sooner for African Americans as a whole than they have for anyone else. And while our integration has had the most profound effects on the broader culture of America, I still believe that for some, Atlanta is indeed a Black Mecca. It's more like an upper middle class Black Mecca, sometimes. Even so, there not quite enough Fuck You Money at the top end of that echelon to write Mecca in stone. It will come, and with any luck those who understand Cruse will not racialize their pluralism to the detriment of the general welfare.

The line between Cruse as a Pluralist and Marshall as an Integrationist is a tricky one to navigate. I'm not certain I understand all the implications myself. But I get the feeling that the culture club of the previously proud group formerly known as the Talented Tenth with have a tight bar, if not a paper bag test. Watch carefully which way rich blacks go and how they justify their enclaves. Marshall and Cruse are tentpoles.

Posted by mbowen at December 8, 2003 10:11 PM

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Comments

Posted by: David at December 9, 2003 05:42 AM

Posted by: Lester Spence at December 10, 2003 08:32 PM