HOW HE SEES IT Grasping the Brown decision

On a quiet Monday afternoon May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court toppled legal precedent and social custom by ruling unanimously that the doctrine of "separate-but-equal" no longer had a place in American society.
In a decision informed by legal analysis, moral clarity, and examination of sociological data that pointed to the detrimental effect of segregation on the self-esteem of black youths, the court set this country on a path that stemmed from an awareness that legalized racial inequality could no longer be tolerated. The promise of equality under the law embedded in the U.S. Constitution could not coexist with the reality of a society whose legal system consigned individuals to the back of the bus based on race.
The great writer Victor Hugo taught us that there is no force as powerful as that of an idea whose time has come. In searching for the factors that coalesced to create the Brown decision, Hugo's insight is perhaps the logical starting point. Consider the historical backdrop to the Brown decision in 1954.
The United States had recently fought a world war against the Nazi menace who sought to create a master race and singled out an entire people for destruction because of their religious identity. Black Americans participated in this great epoch struggle for freedom with honor and courage. They served, however, in segregated troops and returned home from their battle on behalf of American ideals to confront the harsh reality of prejudice and lack of opportunity in their own country. During the 1950s, we were engaged in a war of ideas with the former Soviet Union, which sought to portray its country as a haven of equality blessed with an absence of distinctions based on race and class. It became impossible to wage this war of ideas successfully and portray America as the land of freedom and opportunity as long as legal norms and social convention combined to deny people of color the opportunities that the Declaration of Independence claimed where bestowed upon them by a creator subject to no human authority. Thus, moral courage and pragmatism created a unique opportunity to effect lasting and profound social change.
How to view this
Fifty years later, the temptation is great to view this anniversary as solely an occasion for celebration. The legal ingenuity of a cadre of courageous and determined individuals has meant that for most Americans, the horror of segregation as the law of the land is a historical dynamic to be studied in school rather than a daily reality to be endured in all of its ramifications. This surely is a great achievement. But yet ... studies show that most students continue to attend largely segregated schools. It seems a distinction without a difference to claim that at least the modern variety of segregation is not a legal mandate, merely a complicated social dynamic. If we remain content to claim that the promise of Brown has been redeemed with the eradication of a legal structure, we surely will have lost sight of its larger point and deeper meaning.
The moral underpinning of Brown was, and continues to be, that each of us is created with inherent dignity and potential whose fulfillment it is the obligation of our collective social, economic and legal policies to promote and allow to flourish. The vision of this great decision demands that each of us transcends the superficial distinctions that exist among us to find the core of humanity that connects us to one another.
If we are truly able to internalize this logic, we will understand that patterns of segregation rooted in lack of economic opportunity represent a social malady that threatens the well-being of our entire Valley. We will come to realize that the artificial boundaries that make those of us who live in the right neighborhoods and send their children to the best schools feel secure in the midst of pockets of poverty and desolation are ephemeral and doomed to collapse. We will grasp onto a new paradigm that demands that our elected officials seek out new and creative ways to share resources and apportion social benefits in accordance with the enlightened understanding that the survival of our great urban population centers is not a political struggle to be waged on ideological terms but a moral and practical necessity.
Each day, as I drive my son Zachary to school, we travel down Market Street toward the center of Youngstown. As he looks out the window and sees a cacophony of dilapidated structures, boarded-up buildings and stores with "closed" signs adorning their windows, Zachary is filled with questions and a determination to correct circumstances his young heart and mind understand to be wrong. The future of our Valley depends on harnessing raw moral outrage at injustice and linking it to the human capacity for ingenuity in creating the conditions that will allow all of us to flourish. Then, we will truly have fulfilled the legacy and promise of the Brown decision.
XRabbi Simeon Kolko is spiritual leader of Beth Israel Temple Center in Warren.