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Just 50 years ago in this land of the free, segregation was the law.
Then on this day - on May 17,1954 - came the U.S. Supreme ruling in the case known as Brown v Board of Education. The justices unanimously outlawed segregation in the nation’s schools.
This “big bang of the civil rights movement,” as it has been described, set in motion decades of societal turmoil that resulted in vital changes. A half-century later, however, it is sobering to ask where we stand!
Have bigotry and prejudice disappeared? Is equal opportunity for all a reality? Has discrimination for whatever reason been vanquished?
The answer, sadly, is an obvious no. Brown may have eliminated legalized segregation in education, but not residual racism bred through generations, even millennia of the human experience.
In KSL’s view, the anniversary of Brown v Board of Education provides an incentive for individual and collective introspection. Especially, let such reflection be done in the context of dramatic changes currently taking place within our Utah communities, where the percentage of so-called “minorities” has doubled in the last decade.
On this 50th anniversary of Brown, the essence of the landmark ruling remains relevant. There is yet hope its underlying objectives will one day be realized.
