PBS Documentary Part 3

I feel that since I was born at a time when schools have been integrated racially for a few decades, I will never fully understand the extent of segregation in schools from the 60s to the 80s. I know I've learned about it in every history class I've ever taken and it's been mentioned in nearly every education course I've had, but this video gave me some direct information about the unfair treatment that many minority schoolchildren were faced with. I think I was mostly disturbed by hearing the testimonies of proponents of segregation in Virginia and other states who refused to submit to integration--their arguments for maintaining the sorely unequal facilities seemed so grounded in obstinant ignorance. It was interesting to learn that the Johnson administration came up with the allocation of federal funds only to schools that accepted the integration policies. It seems as though not much has changed since that period of American history, since the same kind of "carrot on a stick" approach to school reform is being used in many states today. I guess the quickest way to earn a state's support is to go straight for its treasury.

It was also enlightening to know that I had probably been giving Brown v. Board of Ed. too much credit for socio-academic reform. According to the documentary, the court ruling went largely unnoticed among states whose segregation policies were long-standing. It was not until the aforementioned federal fund ultimatum that states began to adopt any kind of change. Still, it says a lot about the all-white supreme court council that they could have arrived at such a fair and balanced decision on race discrimination in their time.