Monroe School Dedication

Mr. DOLE. Mr President, last weekend I was privileged to be present at the dedication of the Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, KS, as a National Historic Landmark. The Monroe Elementary School and its companion, the Sumner Elementary School, are associated with one of the most important cases ever to come before the Supreme Court—Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka, which ended legal segregation in our country.

You can tell a great deal about a country by how it deals with its mistakes. Does it cover them up and forget them? Or does it admit to them, learn from them, and work for a better future?

Americans not only admit their mistakes, they make National Historic Landmarks out of them.

The system of segregated schools in Kansas and elsewhere, as well as the treatment of minorities, is not a bright chapter in our Nation's history.

But one thing about Americans is that we're always working to improve ourselves and our country. Linda Brown and her family were trying to improve America when she attempted to enrol in what was an all-white school.

And lawyers John and Charles Scott were trying to improve America when they initiated what would become the most important civil rights case in American history.

All those who played a role in advancing the case dreamed of a Nation where school children—and all people—were not divided by race. They dreamed of a Nation where the doors of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were open to all, and not slammed shut on some.

They dreamed of a Nation that built bridges and not walls. They believed that the Constitution provided that Nation, and the Supreme Court said they were right. It was a shining moment in history that everyone in America should be proud of.

I ask unanimous consent that a statment made by Harry Butowsky of the National Park. Service at Sunday's dedication be printed in the Record. It is an excellent description of the Brown case and its tremendous importance to our country.

There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Statement by Harry Butowsky, National Park Service.

It is a pleasure to be here today to participate at the dedication of the Monroe Elementary School as a National Historic Landmark. With this recognition, the Monroe Elementary School joins a select group of properties, that over the past 50 years, have been determined, by the Secretary of the Interior, to be significant in the History of the United States of America.

National Historic Landmarks are special properties—they teach us about our past, they commemorate and illustrate our history and culture—they are by definition nationally significant sites that rank in importance with any historical unit of the National Park System.

In the years since the inception of the National Historic Landmarks Program only a limited number of properties have been so designated. National Historic Landmarks are identified by theme or special studies, prepared by professional historians. They are recommended by the National Park System Advisory Board and are designated by the Secretary of the Interior under the authority of the Historic Sites Act of 1935.

In the case today, the Monroe Elementary School represents a property that has been determined, through a process of independent study and review, to be important in the Constitutional History of the United States of America.

The Monroe Elementary School and its companion, the Sumner Elementary School, are associated with one of the most important cases ever to come before the Supreme Court of the United States—Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka; a case that illustrates for all Americans the principles upon which our constitutional heritage and liberties are based.

This heritage dates back to 1776; when Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence these immortal words: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government."

These words not only served to justify the American Revolution against Great Britain in 1776, but also served to define us as a nation. They formed the basis for all subsequent American History including the constitutional history of the United States. These words also form the cornerstone upon which our human rights policies to the other nations of the world are founded.

After the Constitution was completed and the Bill of Rights adopted, Tench Cox, an observer of these proceedings and early supporter of the Constitution wrote; "There is no spirit of arrogance in the new federal Constitution. When experience has us its mistakes, the people whom it preserves, absolutes all powerful, can reform and amend them."

What Tench Cox was telling us was that the Constitution as first written in 1787 was not a perfect document. The preservation of our liberties is the responsibility of each new generation of Americans through the continual interpretation and if necessary, revision, of the basic document.

The Constitution Evolves

The evolution of Constitutional doctrine, as foreseen by Tench Cox, took place many times in American History. The most significant of these changes took place in the years after the Civil War when reform minded Republicans sought to insure that the newly freed slaves enjoyed the same measure of equality and opportunity that white Americans enjoyed. Through their control of the Congress, the Republican Party initiated programs, designed to accomplish these ends. In 1865 and 1866, Congress funded the Freedman's Bureau to feed, clothe, and protect the ex-slaves and passed civil rights acts to outlaw varied forms of segregation. In addition, Congress passed the 13th Amendment (1865) to outlaw slavery, the 14th Amendment (1868) to extend federal citizenship to African Americans, and the 15th Amendment (1870) to protect the right to vote. Congress backed up these efforts with the passage of a comprehensive Civil Rights Act in 1875.

In spite of these efforts, the tide of events was running against the effort to secure full civil equality for the ex-slaves. In state after state in the South, the conservative white leadership of the Democratic Party regained control of the Political machinery, and through a process of legislation and intimidation, eliminated African American participation in the political process and instituted a policy of racial segregation. After 1877, support for civil rights from the Congressional and Executive Branches of government waned and African Americans turned to the courts to fight for and secure their civil rights.

The key to this effort to secure full civil and political rights for African Americans rested squarely on the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stated "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The author of that first clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Representative John Bingham of Ohio, fully intended that the Bill of Rights should limit the power of the individual states as well as that of the federal government. Only the federal government, acting under the authority of the Fourteenth Amendment and the various civil rights acts, could guarantee the full civil and political equality of the ex-slaves. From time-to-time before the Civil War, the states had denied the equal protection of the laws to citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment, Bingham believed, changed all that and nationalized civil rights but it did so in a way that respected the traditional federal-state relationship. Although the states would continue to be the principal regulators of personal liberty and civil rights, they would now do so under the supervision of the federal government.

Even with the Fourteenth Amendment and the various civil rights acts, enormous obstacles still impeded federal civil-rights enforcement, and for all practical purposes the question of civil rights was dropped from the national agenda after the Civil War. The ultimate abandonment of civil rights for all Americans was announced by the Supreme Court in 1896 with the case of Plessy vs Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court found no constitutional objection to a Louisiana law requiring separate railway coaches for whites and blacks, if blacks were furnished accommodations equal to whites. Formal racial classification was legitimized.

Not all Americans agreed with this decision. Justice John Marshall Harlan, then serving on the Supreme Court, did not agree with the majority opinion of the court in the Plessy decision when he wrote, "Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among our citizens. In respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law".

The Modern Civil Rights Struggle

Many other Americans soon echoed the words of Justice Harlan. In 1903, Mr. William Reynolds did not agree with this position. Mr. Reynolds, an African American living in Topeka, Kansas, tried to enrol his son in a school set aside for whites. He was refused and brought suit against the Board of Education. The Supreme Court of Kansas, citing Plessy vs Ferguson and other cases, denied Mr. Reynolds the right to enrol his son in a white school. The legal basis of segregation in the Topeka elementary schools was affirmed.

After Mr. Reynolds filed and lost his case other Americans, took up the struggle. Dr. W.E.B. Dubois from Massachusetts, Mary McLeod Bethune from Virginia, Isaiah T. Montgomery from Mississippi, Mrs. Ida Wells-Barnett from Chicago, and the citizens of Boley, Oklahoma, and countless others; all fought for years to make the words of Thomas Jefferson a reality.

After the end of the Second World War the forces of change were felt in all America, including Topeka. Returning African American service men joined a small but growing elite of teachers, lawyers, and other professionals to challenge the system of segregation, In Topeka, the leaders in this movement, such as Charles Scott, an attorney from the Washburn Law School; Mrs. Lucinda Todd, a former school teacher; Mrs. Inza Brown, a legal secretary; Mrs. Mamie Luella Williams, a teacher from the Monroe Elementary School; and McKinley Burnett, head of the Topeka NAACP, were determined to change the system.

The focal point of this effort eventually settled on the segregated public schools of Topeka. In 1948, Mr. Burnett and Mrs. Todd wrote to the New York headquarters of the NAACP indicating their willingness to go to court to test the Kansas law that permitted segregation. With the encouragement of the New York headquarters of the NAACP, local attorneys Charles Bledsoe and John and Charles Scott drew up the legal papers to challenge the system of segregation in the elementary schools.

Before the suit could be filed, however, plaintiffs were needed. One of the first plaintiffs was Lucinda Todd, the NAACP Branch Secretary. Joining Mrs. Todd in the suit were twelve other plaintiffs. These were:

Rev. Oliver Brown Mrs. Richard Lawton Mrs. Sadie Emanuel Mrs. Iona Richardson Mrs. Lena Carper Mrs. Marguerite Emerson Mrs. Shirley Hodison Mrs. Allen Lewis Mrs. Darlene Brown Mrs. Shirla Fleming Mrs. Andrew Henderson Mrs. Vivian Scales

The case was officially filed with the United States District Court for Kansas on February 28, 1951. Its title was Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka.

Conclusion

By the fall of 1952 the Supreme Court had on its docket cases from four states, Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia, challenging the constitutionality of racial segregation in public schools. In several of these cases the facts showed that both the black and white schools were as equal with respect to buildings, salaries, teachers, and other tangible factors as could be expected. The issue before the Court was the constitutionality of segregation per se—the question of whether the doctrine of Plessy vs Ferguson should be affirmed or reversed.

The five cases were argued before the Court in December 1952. Mr. Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was later to sit on the court, argued on behalf of the defendants.

The death of Chief Justice Vinson caused the cases to be reargued in December 1953, after the appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice. On May 17, 1954, the Court issued its historic decision in which it concluded that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. After sixty years, Plessy vs Ferguson was overturned.

Final Summary

This decision, in Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, was momentous. The social and ideological impact of the case cannot be overestimated. The decision was unanimous with only a single opinion of the Court. The issue of the legal separation of the races was settled. Segregation was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution and was unconstitutional. By denying African American children the right to freely enrol in their local schools, the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, started the chain of events that led to the Supreme Court and the case of Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka. The Sumner Elementary School and the Monroe Elementary School symbolize both the harsh reality of discrimination permitted by the Plessy decision in 1896 and the promise of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that was realized after 1954.

Today, these schools stand as monuments to generations of Americans who refused to accept the denial of their basic civil rights as first proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1776 and guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

Tench Cox was correct in his observations of the Constitution in 1787. It is the responsibility of each new generation of Americans to interpret and, if necessary, amend the Constitution to see that our basic civil liberties are safeguarded and preserved.

Today, as we dedicate the Monroe Elementary School as a National Historic Landmark, let us remember the constitutional principles for which it stands—in the words of Mr. Justice John Marshall Harlan—"Our Constitution is color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among our citizens. In respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law." Let us also remember the previous generations of Americans who fought to preserve these principles.

The greatness of our Constitution, as historians like to say, demands that we be ever vigilant in the preservation of our liberties. Through the preservation of both the Monroe and Sumner Elementary Schools let us ensure that the next generation of Americans will remember their Constitutional birthright to liberty and equality, and justice for all.

Congressional Record—Senate
May 20, 1992

© Copyright 1992
Institute for domestic Tranquility