Residents reflect on impacts of Brown v. Board ruling
May 17—Seven decades after the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case to invalidate racial segregation in schools, its legacy continues to have impacts on the local level.
On May 17, 1954, the court unanimously declared unconstitutional the doctrine of "separate but equal," established in 1896, which authorized governments to require Black people to use different public services. Follow-up rulings ordered all schools to set aside racial barriers, and the St. Joseph School District complied in summer 1955.
"St. Joseph was one of the first in the nation to integrate, because they had already gone into summer school session at that time when the ruling came down, so they integrated those summer school classes," said Gary Wilkinson, former city councilman.
Juanema Jolly was one of the first students to integrate into Central High School. She is thankful, she said, that the horrific scenes from Little Rock, Arkansas, of angry protesters screaming at newly admitted Black students, did not occur in St. Joseph.
At the same time, she found herself missing her teachers from the all-Black Bartlett School, who could not accompany her into the combined system — there were not enough jobs for them. In addition, while outright abuse never occurred, there was a sort of cold shoulder treatment in the halls, she said. Nobody rejected Jolly's presence outright, but that did not mean she felt especially welcome.
"We had to learn how to treat everybody equally," Jolly said. "That's a hard thing when you come from different backgrounds, for some people. And some people, to me, were taught not to be tolerant of someone who was of a different ethnic background."
Loes Hedge, who became a teacher in the years after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, looked back on its significance in raising public awareness about the problem of racial unfairness.
"That was the first time a mass number of people across the United States found out about how much discrimination there was," said Hedge, secretary of the St. Joseph NAACP. "And the fact that the court was unanimous when they voted that it was unconstitutional was very important."
Wilkinson observed the process of integrating schools, restaurants, bathrooms, stores and all other public spaces, a process that began with the Brown ruling, had its share of unintended consequences.
"All along a street you would have Black-owned businesses," Wilkinson said. "After integration, a lot of them went bankrupt. The overall meaning of it was great, because segregation shouldn't happen. But part of this history involves that decline."
Hedge is preparing for the 2023 Juneteenth celebration to be held in town, which will mark the day on which the Union Army proclaimed in 1865 the freedom of the slaves in Galveston, Texas, following the end of the Civil War. Education on history like that is important, she said.
"It's not just Black history, it's U.S. history," Hedge said. "It is our history."
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
