| Description |
The primary concentration of this project is an analysis of post-Brown v. Board segregation issues within the public education sphere. I focus primarily on the legal history of school desegregation in Texas as it is a Southern state with a long history of racial segregation. Furthermore, Texas effectively represents the complex multiracial structure of the U.S. as a whole. Throughout the early twentieth century, the discussion of segregation and racism often occurred in the biracial paradigm of black and white. The United States is far more diverse country with a mixture of different cultures and ethnicities. African Americans are no longer the largest minority population in the nation, as Latinos have significantly increased in numbers. As a result, this project analyzes the historic impact of the predominantly tri-racial society that resulted in the pre-Brown v. Board era. U.S. civil rights and racial history has been altered significantly by the increase of minorities in the United States. This exposes the fact that race is not a scientific reality, but rather a social construct. As the renowned historian Winthrop Jordan so eloquently stated: "It is now clear that mankind is a single biological species; that races are neither discrete nor stable units but rather that they are plastic, changing, integral parts of a whole which is itself changing."1 The complexity and malleability of race has changed the way in which it is discussed and in how segregation has been dealt with in the U.S. public school system. Although we may be in a post-Brown period, we are not in a period without racism. Segregation and other forms of racial discrimination have evolved and racism operates under various guises. There is still much work to be done in overcoming racial barriers in the United States. |
