Removing a Badge of Slavery: The Record of Brown v. Board of Education.

Abstract

Removing a Badge of Slavery: The Record of Brown v. Board of Education, edited by Mark Whitman. Princeton, NJ & New York: Markus Wiener, 1993. 357 pp. $49.95, cloth.With this year marking the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, Removing a Badge of Slavery is appropriate reading for persons interested in the history of this momentous event. Although this book is directed at a general audience, even those readers who are already familiar with the events surrounding the Brown decision will find it informative.A significant portion of this work is dedicated to presenting edited texts of many of the most important documents associated with Brown, including excerpts from court opinions, trial transcripts, litigants' briefs, legislative and administrative documents, and scholarly research. As Whitman notes in his introductory remarks: I have tried...to let the record of Brown speak for itself in this book to the greatest degree possible (p. vii). While perhaps the most intriguing portions of the book are the documents associated with Brown, readers will find the sections written by Whitman interesting, enlightening, and reflective of a thorough understanding of the issues involved in this monumental case. Many readers will no doubt differ with Whitman regarding his choices in editing cases and other documents; others may wish that he had included more of the original texts. Nonetheless, he has accomplished a more than satisfactory job of reducing an immense amount of relevant material down to a single volume and many will appreciate his concise editing.After an informative introductory section, part one focuses on the forebears of Brown. It begins with the record of the 1849 case of Roberts v. City of Boston, in which Massachusetts Supreme Court Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw articulated the rule of separate but equal and the first to enunciate, at least with regard to education, the principle which animated Plessy v. Ferguson (p. 4). Although an 1855 state statute ended segregation in Massachusetts, the doctrine of separate but equal would later fortified by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy in 1896. Edited portions of the Plessy decision are also included, as are excerpts from later higher education desegregation cases and from Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma.Part two covers events related to the cases that would eventually consolidated for argument before the Court as Brown v. Board of Education. Parts three and four address the argument and reargument of Brown. The concluding section, which contains excerpts from some important commentaries on Brown from the 1950s and 1960s, is somewhat ofdisappointment because it presents little information regarding the future of public school desegregation. It would have been worthwhile if Whitman had included excerpts from commentaries by more contemporary legal scholars. It would also have been helpful if an index had been included for readers who wish to cross-reference or locate specific material.Throughout this book, Whitman shares intriguing historical facts with his readers. For example, in his discussion of University of Maryland v. Murray (1936), he notes that the victory in this case especially sweet for Marshall, who had not even applied to the Maryland Law School in 1929, realizing how futile it would be (p. 18). This victory was sweetened even more, Whitman relates, when the university dedicated a new law library to Marshall in 1980. Whitman also documents the support of White students in the desegregation movement. In his introduction to the record of Sweatt v. Painter (1950), for example, he recalls a rally attended by two thousand Whites of the University of Texas educational community supporting racial integration, and he describes the activities of an all-White local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). …