The Hollow Hope

This article brings up the biggest dilemma I encountered while reading. It asks you whether the violence, teasing and sacrifices endured by black students trying to integrate into school systems is worth attaining the law that all schools must be "desegregated with all deliberate speed"? When I began this article I wasn't sure that it would have been such a big problem. Then I remembered watching movies like Remember the Titans of how bad black students were treated. It might be cheesy that I connected to a sports movie, but this was the closest connection I had with the 1960s.

I cannot give an opinion about whether Cooper vs. Aaron should have been rejected or not, because it's not my place. I can sit here and say the United States laws are meant to be followed no matter what, but its not that simple. If there's one thing we learned in Law and Society, its that law is much more complicated than anyone thought. The law goes beyond just right and wrong, but rather what right and what wrong. My point is that every decision by a court, rejection or law that is passed is different and the outside factors are extremely important.

We see that with Brown vs. the Board of Education that people even black people were upset with the decision. And this decision was supposed to help those black people. So what does that say? The Civil Rights movement and the Brown case were both trying to move in the same direction far more quickly than anyone had thought. Forcing black people into all white schools might not have been the right move to make at first. I just have to wonder.

The truth is that something needs to be done. We have come a far way from the 1960s but the fact is, there still needs to be work done. The desegrgation techniques haven't failed completely, but haven't succeeded completely either. That's one of the opinions I formed from learning about this. Rosenberg goes into some detail about other cases in the 60s and 70s and their effects. I found his statistics interesting about the Southern states and their desegreation rates. Obviously there was not a quick and concise social movement that took place. It took a long time and with much effort.