In this Book
- Law Touched Our Hearts: A Generation Remembers Brown v. Board of Education
- Book
- 2009
- Published by: Vanderbilt University Press
What Brown did was to elevate race from the country's dirty secret to its most urgent topic of conversation. This book stands alone in presenting, in one source, stories of black and white Americans, men and women, from all parts of the nation, who were public school students during the years immediately after Brown. All shared an epiphany. Some became aware of race and the burden of racial separation. Others dared to hope that the yoke of racial oppression would at last be lifted.
The editors surveyed 4750 law professors born between 1936 and 1954, received 1000 responses, and derived these forty essays from those willing to write personal accounts of their childhood experiences in the classroom and in their communities. Their moving stories of how Brown affected them say much about race relations then and now. They also provide a picture of how social change can shape the careers of an entire generation in one profession.
Contributors provide accounts from across the nation. Represented are
-de jure states, those segregated by law at the time of Brown, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia
-de facto states, those where segregation was illegal but a common practice, including California, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Table of Contents
- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. iii-iv
- Acknowledgments
- p. xi
- Introduction
- pp. 1-7
- 1. Learning about Skin Color
- pp. 11-15
- 2. Segregated Proms in 2003
- pp. 16-20
- 3 The Wall
- pp. 21-22
- 4. And the Walls Came Tumblin’ Down
- pp. 23-25
- 6. Training in Alabama
- pp. 33-35
- 7. Loss of Innocence
- pp. 36-42
- 9. Becoming a Legal Troublemaker
- pp. 51-57
- 10. Color-Blind in Georgia
- pp. 59-63
- 11. Taking a Stand
- pp. 65-66
- 12. Seeing the Hollow
- pp. 67-71
- 13. A Glen Echo Passage
- pp. 72-77
- 14. I Can’t Play with You No More
- pp. 79-82
- 15. A White Boy from Mississippi
- pp. 83-89
- 16. A Journey of Conscience
- pp. 90-93
- 17. Promise and Paradox
- pp. 95-102
- 18. A Different Kind of Education
- pp. 103-106
- 20. Crossing Invisible Lines
- pp. 115-122
- 21. Segregation in Memphis
- pp. 123-134
- 23. Standing Up for Brown in Danville
- pp. 143-148
- 24. Urgent Conversations
- pp. 149-152
- 26. Brown as Catalyst
- pp. 157-160
- 29. Brown’s Ambiguous Legacy
- pp. 171-175
- 31. The Discrete and Insular Majority
- pp. 181-183
- 32. Princess in the Tower
- pp. 184-190
- 33. Shades of Brown
- pp. 191-194
- 34. Brown Comes to Boston: A Courtside View
- pp. 195-200
- 35. Checkerboard Segregation in the 1950s
- pp. 201-207
- 36. With One Hand Waving Free
- pp. 209-213
- 37. Indirect and Substantial Effect
- pp. 215-223
- 38. Brown Goes North
- pp. 225-230
- 39. The Virtues of Public Education
- pp. 231-234
- 40. Entering Another’s Circle
- pp. 235-238
- The Survey
- pp. 241-249
Additional Information
Copyright
2009