Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform

by Derrick Bell

Overview

When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, would become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent.

Here, Derrick Bell shatters the shining image of this celebrated ruling. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. He maintains that, given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined instead to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants—unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights—that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions.

In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195182477
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/18/2005
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 5.82(h) x 0.65(d)
Lexile:	1560L (what's this?)

About the Author

Derrick Bell is Visiting Professor of Law at New York University Law School. As an NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawyer, he handled and supervised hundreds of school desegregation cases during the 1960s. He is the author of several books, including And We Are Not Saved. He lives in New York City.

Hometown:

New York, New York

Date of Birth:

November 6, 1930

Place of Birth:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Education:

A.B., Duquesne University, 1952; L.L.B., University of Pittsburgh Law School, 1957

Website:

http://www.law.nyu.edu/faculty/profiles/fulltime/belld.html

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	1
1.	Plessy's Long Shadow	11
2.	Brown's Half Light	14
3.	Brown Reconceived: An Alternative Scenario	20
4.	The Racial-Sacrifice Covenants	29
5.	The Interest-Convergence Covenants	49
6.	Brown as an Anticommunist Decision	59
7.	The Role of Fortuity in Racial Policy-Making	69
8.	Racism's Economic Foundation	77
9.	School Litigation in the Nineteenth Century	87
10.	The School Desegregation Era	94
11.	The End of the Brown Era	114
12.	Brown as Landmark: An Assessment	130
13.	Affirmative Action and Racial Fortuity in Action	138
14.	Searching for Effective Schools in the Post-Brown Era	160
15.	Moving Beyond Racial Fortuity	180
	Conclusion	194
	Notes	203
	Index	223

Editorial Reviews

"Mournful.... Captures the significance of Brown at the time of its pronouncement and of African Americans' then-unconquerable optimism about the country's ultimate goodness."—Debra J. Dickerson, Mother Jones

"Bell, always a self-consciously provocative writer, remains true to form in Silent Covenants. In his most creative chapter, Bell imagines an alternative Brown decision that would have upheld segregation but insisted on the equalization of resources between blacks and whites. Had that road been followed, he suggests, black children might have gotten the education they needed and deserved."—Boston Globe

"Provocatively sardonic.... His pervasive melancholy may surprise readers who expect movement veterans to celebrate victories rather than rue their missteps, but to Bell the very perception of Brown as a victory is a 'mirage' that must be vanquished."—Chicago Tribune

"A bold and sobering counterproposal."—The New Yorker

From the Publisher

Bell, a former civil rights attorney, mixes provocative critical legal studies theory with personal reflections on his own journey—a descent into the harsh realities of the front lines of the school desegregation battles.—Christopher Benson

The Washington Post

Eminent law professor Bell (And We Are Not Saved, etc.), who helped litigate school desegregation cases after the momentous 1954 Brown decision, initially believed that racial justice would ensue, but he has long had second thoughts. Brown, he contends, is a "magnificent mirage," the Supreme Court's order of "all deliberate speed" a willingness to sacrifice black rights to white resistance, not to mention its decades-later unwillingness to acknowledge metropolitan housing patterns and extend desegregation to the suburbs. Noting, among other things, the importance of Brown as a gesture to the decolonizing world, Bell considers it akin to the Emancipation Proclamation, another decision in which blacks obtained relief only when it served the best interests of the country. He posits an alternative Brown decision, one that acknowledges that segregation afflicts whites as well as blacks and that orders immediate equity of resources and representation; this enforcement of the Supreme Court's infamous "separate but equal" doctrine, Bell believes, would have inevitably eroded separation. He acknowledges that desegregation has increased the achievement of black students, but economic and housing barriers have increasingly limited such opportunities. Similarly, the controversy over affirmative action obscures economic issues-such as budget cuts-that pose even greater barriers to minorities seeking higher education. Given the endurance of racism, Bell suggests multiple, pragmatic tactics to resist oppression, rather than the "romantic love of integration" or even the "long-sought goal of equality under law." Bell's wide-ranging provocations effectively challenge those who still consider Brown the "Holy Grail of racial justice." Author tour. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly