The Sense of Inferiority

"Beware that you don't look down upon a single one of these children. For I tell you that in heaven their angels have constant access to my Father." Matthew 18:10



Brown vs. Board of Education
In the early 1950's, racial segregation in public schools was the norm across America. Although all the schools in a given district were supposed to be equal, most black schools were far inferior to their white counterparts.

In Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school, but the principal of the school refused. Brown went to McKinley Burnett, the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help. The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long wanted to challenge segregation in public schools. With Brown's complaint, it had "the right plaintiff at the right time." Other black parents joined Brown, and, in 1951, the NAACP requested an injunction that would forbid the segregation of Topeka's public schools.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas heard Brown's case from June 25-26, 1951. At the trial, the NAACP argued that segregated schools sent the message to black children that they were inferior to whites; therefore, the schools were inherently unequal. One of the expert witnesses, Dr. Hugh W. Speer, testified that:

"...if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum cannot be equal under segregation." The Board of Education's defense was that, because segregation in Topeka and elsewhere pervaded many other aspects of life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood. The board also argued that segregated schools were not neccessarily harmful to black children; great African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver had overcome more than just segregated schools to achieve what they achieved.

The request for an injunction put the court in a difficult decision. On the one hand, the judges agreed with the expert witnesses; in their decision, they wrote: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. On the other hand, the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson allowed separate but equal school systems for blacks and whites, and no Supreme Court ruling had overturned Plessy yet. Because of the precedent of Plessy, the court felt "compelled" to rule in favor of the Board of Education.

Brown and the NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court on October 1, 1951 and their case was combined with other cases that challenged school segregation in South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. The Supreme Court first heard the case on December 9, 1952, but failed to reach a decision. In the reargument, heard from December 7-8, 1953, the Court requested that both sides discuss "the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868." The reargument shed very little additional light on the issue. The Court had to make its decision based not on whether or not the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment had desegregated schools in mind when they wrote the amendment in 1868, but based on whether or not desegregated schools deprived black children of equal protection of the law when the case was decided, in 1954.

The story of Brown vs. The Board of Education tells us about the determination that black parents in the 50's had to see their children obtain a fair and equal opportunity at the best education. The history of black children in those days having to feel like they we inferior to white children was a lot for a child to grow up with especially in that era. But although segregation has ended in schools across America for the most part, there are still black children that attend school with that same sense of inferiority, (not because of segregation) I believe this is why so many fail and exhibit wild behavior. Some of these behaviors I believe come from an inferior complex that most of our children struggle with right now. This is why I believe many of them commit the senseless crimes to prove a point that I am not inferior and don't mess with me attitude.

Alternative schools are just another means of displaying segregation. Many children (not all) attend those schools never really getting the help they need. They only return to the regular school system lost, many (not all) unlearned and having to deal with the fact that they can not keep up like other children, inferiority kicks in and so does rebellious and wild behavior. For many children (not all) their rebellion is a sign for help. I commend all those in the public school system that give their best to our children. But parents, teachers and the whole community, black, white, latino, asian it doesn't matter must fight for the best quality of education for all children at all times. Never look down on them, only look down to help them up. The only one they are inferior to is God, lets give them the sense of being ferocious at going after what ever it is they would love to become, and not become vicious because of this sense of inferiority that makes a person do whatever to prove they are somebody. The judges agreed in the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education that... a sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn." Let us motivate more of our youth, come on church, community and families let us show our children how valuable they are no matter what the color of their skin.