Detroit: Activist City

The motor city area, Motown to some, is host to two major conferences this week -- the NAACP and NOW.

The NAACP is wrapping up a week of meetings, which included a keynote address by NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Julian Bond.

... this is the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock School integration crisis. We honored the courage of the Little Rock Nine and their parents by holding our May Board meeting in Little Rock, along with our Daisy Bates Education Summit. In a cruel irony, the United States Supreme Court observed the 50th anniversary of Little Rock by gutting Brown v. Board, the historic case which gave birth to Little Rock and was supposed to end school segregation.

Until about 25 years ago, remarkable progress toward that goal was made under Brown. “From 1954 to 1982, [Supreme Court] Justices of all persuasions – from William Brennan to Lewis Powell to William Rehnquist – agreed that race-conscious integration policies stand in harmony, not tension, with Brown.”

Indeed, for most of us, the notion that race ought not be considered in remedying racial discrimination is ludicrous. Now the ludicrous has become law.

The Bush Court, on the same day the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list, removed black children from the law’s protection. In two cases from Louisville and Seattle, the Court held by a 5 – 4 vote that those school systems could not voluntarily use race in assigning students to schools.

This is the most radical in a line of cases beginning in the 1980s that questioned race-conscious policies. Only Justice Kennedy stood between this ruling and total disaster. Four members of the Court – the right-wing brothers Scalia and Thomas and Bush appointees Alito and Roberts - would have prohibited any use of race in remedying school segregation.

The truth is, there are no non-racial remedies for racial discrimination. In order to get beyond race, you have to go to race. To suggest racial neutrality as a remedy for racial discrimination is sophistry of the highest order.

At a time when school segregation is increasing, a plurality of the Court would condemn minority children to secondary status before they’ve even started secondary school.

I would encourage you to read the complete text of his remarks.

The NOW annual conference promises to be just as exciting, as activists address concerns over the sharp right turn of the Court and the upcoming presidential election.

Stay tuned!