Sowell’s Brazen Lies About Brown vs. Board of Education

[johnkarls]

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Sowell’s brazen lies about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education were not only odious but profoundly offensive for Yours Truly who, during the summer of 1966, was within 60 seconds of being assassinated according to the North Carolina State Police while serving on the U.S. Government’s first task force formed to eliminate the de jure dual-school systems of the 11 states of the Old Confederacy and the 6 Slave States that did NOT join the Confederacy because of President Lincoln’s constant claim that the raison d’être of the Civil War was to “preserve the union” and DEFINITELY NOT to abolish slavery.

In the first two pages of his three-page “Preface” to “Charter Schools and Their Enemies,” Sowell claims that some “all-black” high schools had achieved excellence, citing in particular Dunbar High School in Washington DC during the “era from 1870-1955” following which Sowell states that as of “the early 1970’s” --

“Chief Justice Earl Warren had already declared racially separate schools to be ‘inherently unequal’ in the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, so racial segregation was the prevailing explanation of substantial black educational achievements. [Editorial Note: Does Sowell mean the LACK THEREOF???] The fact that all-black Dunbar High School was only about a mile away from the Supreme Court where the Chief Justice made his historic pronouncement, and that Dunbar, at that time, sent a higher proportion of its graduates on to college than any white schools in the city, was a fact that was probably unknown to those crusading for racial ‘integration’ in the schools, and that fact would probably not have made any difference to them, even if they had known it. Many people had already made up their minds, and did not want to be confused by the facts.”

Let’s ignore the possibility that Washington DC might have resembled other American cities whose legendary “white flight” had meant affluent whites had fled to the suburbs, so why would it be remarkable that the best-performing black high school in the “inner city” had a higher college-matriculation rate than any of the “inner city” poor-white high schools???

Let’s ignore that possibility because Brown vs. Board of Education was dealing with the PURELY-EVIL DE JURE DUAL-SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE 11 STATES OF THE OLD CONFEDERACY AND THE 6 SLAVE STATES THAT DID NOT JOIN THE CONFEDERACY BECAUSE OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN’S CONSTANT CLAIM THAT THE RAISON D’ÊTRE OF THE CIVIL WAR WAS TO “PRESERVE THE UNION” AND DEFINITELY NOT TO ABOLISH SLAVERY.

Brown vs. Board was explicitly addressing the notorious “separate but equal” doctrine of the Supreme Court’s 1896 decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson that racial segregation laws did NOT violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment requirement of “equal protection of the law” so long as the segregated facilities were “separate but equal”!!!

During the summer of 1966, Yours Truly witnessed the unspeakable squalor for what passed as “separate but equal” de jure all-black schools in North Carolina. And they were not even in operation during the summer, so Yours Truly was at least spared having to witness the quality of their teaching, or lack thereof.

So why did it take 12 years for the U.S. Government to finally get around in 1966 to begin to dismantle the de jure dual-school systems of the 17 former slave states???

Although Brown vs. Board was decided in 1954, President Eisenhower did not want to jeopardize his re-election in 1956 by lifting a finger to enforce Brown vs. Board UNTIL AFTER HIS RE-ELECTION!!!

Following the election, the focal point of Southern defiance was when Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out 10,000 troops of the Arkansas National Guard on 9/4/1957 to prevent 9 African-American students from entering Little Rock’s Central High School.

The nation was then treated to 3 weeks of stand-off as President Eisenhower essentially kept saying “Don’t make me do it” and Gov. Faubus essentially kept replying “Over my dead body”!!!

On 9/24/1957, after three weeks of stand-off, President Eisenhower finally nationalized the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard Troops and then, as their new Commanding Officer, ordered them to “stand down” while he ordered the 10,000-plus “Screaming Eagles” of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to escort the 9 students into Central H.S., and then to establish an impregnable perimeter defense around the school!!!

The 10,000 Arkansas National Guard Troops who had just been nationalized knew that disobeying their new Commanding Officer would result in court martial!!!

And the 10,000-plus “Screaming Eagles” of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division -- which had been created by Eisenhower in 1942 for its famous 1944 “Rendezvous With Destiny” parachuting into three different “drop zones” behind Nazi lines on “D-Day” followed by pivotal roles in other crucial battles with the Nazis, such as the Nazi counter-attack at “The Battle of the Bulge” which nearly succeeded -- were an intimidating-enough sight to “keep the peace” in what could have been a very bloody and wide-ranging rebellion!!!

Though there was a fair amount of speculation at the time that they might NOT be!!!

After all, at that time the U.S. armed forces were highly-disproportionately composed of Southerners in both the officer and enlisted ranks.

As in any rebellion throughout history, there is always the question of whether a military unit will hold together and obey its orders, or whether it will disintegrate into opposing fragments, or whether it will “go over” to the other side.

And because of its predominant Southern composition, there was great doubt whether The Screaming Eagles would hold together and obey President Eisenhower’s orders.

It would be reasonable to suppose that President Eisenhower had some “sleepless nights” over what his “Screaming Eagles” would do!!!

At least, like the careful planner he was throughout his life, Eisenhower chose the military unit that gave him “the best shot” of accomplishing the mission.


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My Being “Within 60 Seconds of Being Assassinated” in 1966

Many of you have heard more times than you would care to remember how I was 60 seconds away from being assassinated while serving as a member of the first U.S. governmental task force during the summer of 1966 to eliminate the de jure dual-school systems of the 11 states of the Old Confederacy and the 6 Slave States that did NOT join the Confederacy because of President Lincoln’s constant claim that the raison d’être of the Civil War was to “preserve the union” and DEFINITELY NOT to abolish slavery.

Though based in old CCC barracks on the Washington DC Mall (the only office space available on short notice and long since razed), our group was divided among those 17 states and we made frequent field trips.

Yours Truly was assigned to North Carolina and my partner (per policy, we had integrated teams) during a trip to Bertie County NC suggested one evening after he swam his laps in the motel pool (which always caused an evacuation by the other guests – after all, the motel and its pool had been “White Only” a mere two years earlier) that we visit the Tastee Freez across the highway.

The Tastee Freez also functioned as a “drive in” with the result that more than a dozen angry men piled into the Tastee Freez behind us from their cars in which they had been eating.

We therefore decided to leave. I fell in behind my partner so that he would have the best chance of escaping. All of the angry men begin sticking out their feet in an attempt to trip us (presumably so that they could claim that if we had stumbled into one of them, we had been guilty of assault).

The last person just before the door looked about my size (5’ 11” & 180 pounds) so I purposely tripped over his foot, spilling my milkshake all over him. I smiled apologetically while saying “I’m sorry, I tripped” and was out the door before he could react.

We ran across the highway where we were greeted by several State Trooper Squad Cars with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

The State Troopers had been called by the proprietor of the Tastee Freez who had feared that his premises would be destroyed while we were assassinated.

The State Troopers were disgusted over saving us as a by-product of protecting the Tastee Freez.

My partner and I knew that we risked our lives by entering the formerly “All White” Tastee Freez, just like we risked our lives by staying in the formerly “All White” motel and swimming in its pool. And if we had been assassinated, we knew full well the reason – that we were using public facilities that had been “All White” a mere two years earlier.

After all, even though 1966 was 3 years BEFORE the assassinations of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, 1966 was 2 years AFTER the assassinations in Mississippi of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who had been working on the “Freedom Summer” campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to register African-Americans to vote.

My partner and I had agreed at the beginning of the summer that being assassinated, if that should be our fate, would crown “lives well lived”!!!


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Conclusion

I find it grotesque in the extreme that Sowell, in effect, is claiming that the de jure dual-school segregation of the former 17 slave states should not have been attacked – beginning with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board!!!

AND GROTESQUE IN THE EXTREME HIS PERSONAL AD HOMINEM INSULT THAT I WAS ONE OF “THOSE CRUSADING FOR RACIAL ‘INTEGRATION’ IN THE SCHOOLS”!!!

Yes, we can discuss ad nauseum at our Oct 13 meeting Sowell’s claims in “Charter Schools and Their Enemies” whether the best way to deal with the nation’s Permanent 30% Under-Caste which, for more than a half-century, has been illiterate as defined by the U.S. Government as the inability to read the warning label on a can of rat poison, is --

(1) THE GOLD STANDARD of the 178 “I Have A Dream”® Programs which, in the 1990’s in 51 American cities, transformed the typical SINGLE-DIGIT high-school graduation rates of the classes just ahead and behind each Dreamer class to more than 90% - WITH NO EXCEPTIONS (adopting EVERY third grader in an inner-city school or EVERY child in the third-grade cohort of a public-housing project), or

(2) Sowell’s beloved charter schools EVEN THOUGH HE HAS FAILED to demonstrate that they can consistently produce results that are comparable to public schools in the same area, EVEN THOUGH HE HAS FAILED to demonstrate that the few charter schools that have produced better results (17% in the 2009 comprehensive study of Stanford University financed by such pro-charter groups as the Walton Family Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation) do NOT owe their success to their policies of admitting only students of parents who are functional enough to apply and then expelling students who do not meet performance standards, AND EVEN THOUGH HE HAS FAILED to justify his morally-bankrupt policy of saving only SOME of our inner-city children and continuing to condemn the remainder to a “fate worse than death” (what inner-city 5-year-olds know are their only realistic career objectives – pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore (none of which requires much education!!!))!!!

In the meantime, Sowell owes me an apology for his grotesque lies about Brown vs. Board of Education. AND FOR HIS PERSONAL AD HOMINEM INSULT THAT IN WORKING TO ELMINATE THE DE JURE DUAL-SCHOOL SYSTEMS OF THE FORMER 17 SLAVE STATES, I WAS “CRUSADING FOR RACIAL ‘INTEGRATION’ IN THE SCHOOLS”!!!

[Yes, I was “crusading” and proud of it – but Sowell considered “crusading” an epithet!!!]

SOWELL CAN SEND HIS APOLOGY TO OUR E-MAIL ADDRESS WHICH IS PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED MANY PLACES ON THIS BULLETIN BOARD – ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com.