Thanks to the civil rights revolution, de jure segregation is dead. But vast social, economic and educational inequalities continue to plague American society. Moreover, while the black-white paradigm has never fully described American race relations, we are far more aware today than in the past of the multiracial nature of our society. With this in mind, we asked a range of scholars, writers and activists to reflect on the legacy of Brown and the prospects for future change. Should education be the primary focus of social activism? What strategies will most effectively promote educational betterment in black and other communities? Can we expect the courts to play a role at the forefront of change, as they did for much of the 1950s and '60s, and if not, what other institutions are positioned to adopt that role? Is the goal of educational desegregation irrelevant today? Their responses follow.    --The Editors

Asa Hilliard III

"Segregation," "desegregation," "integration" and "assimilation" are key words that have served as lenses through which racial inequity and oppression through schooling have been viewed and understood. This language is not a compatible fit with the real world of schools, teaching and learning, nor does it reflect an understanding of the full dimensions of the problem.

Before Brown, Carter Woodson and W.E.B. Du Bois were among the few who grasped the robustness of the white supremacy social order, and its manifestation in the structure and function of the schools. Segregation was not merely the coerced separation of the "races" in schools. It was a total structure of domination, which included the uses of all major societal institutions--law, mass media, criminal justice, religion, science, school curriculum, spectator sports, art, music, etc.

These agencies provided the propaganda and legitimacy that resulted not only in coerced physical segregation but in a false school curriculum; the control over African schooling by segregationists; the defamation of African culture; the disruption of African institutions of family, ethnic group identity and solidarity; prevention of wealth accumulation; blocked access to communication; the teaching of white supremacy and African inferiority; and more. The Brown decision addressed mainly two things: physical segregation and financial inequalities in school funding. While Brown was a major challenge to the structure of racial domination by heroic advocates and activists, the decision fell far short of addressing the totality of the school problem, which continues to lie in the larger domination structure. "Integrating" the schools did not eliminate the ideology of white supremacy from which "segregation" derived.

In the absence of a real understanding of the structure of domination, some of the worst elements of segregation have returned, in new guises. Tracking is less visible, but it persists. Today's scripted, standardized, cookie-cutter, minimum-competency managed instruction, sometimes by private contractors, with severely reduced parent and community involvement, is offered mainly in low-income minority cultural group schools. Affluent public or private schools rarely if ever use the scripted, non-intellectual robotic programs. This is the new segregation.

We must ask not merely "Were the schools 'desegregated' or 'integrated?'" but "Has the achievement of African children improved significantly? Has the curriculum been desegregated? What explains the massive decline in the African teaching and leadership force in the schools?" Teachers and administrators receive little in the way of robust multicultural content and perspectives in their own training. The celebration of heroic individuals and their singular "contributions" during Black History Month cannot substitute for the evolving story of a people that is reflected in all curriculum areas. Patterns of African worldviews, cultural creativities, spirituality and value systems, political and economic challenges, etc., provide a context for individual actions that is missing in many schools.

Brown was mainly about black and white. Now a rainbow of other ethnic groups has arrived to share in the "savage inequalities" that persist. This presents major challenges, conceptual and structural, calling for a whole new resolve, and resources to provide truly equal opportunities to learn. Currently marginalized educators who have always achieved excellence, regardless of social class or ethnicity, ought to be leading our schools, systems and policy, not those newcomers to education who are "experimenting," often with ideas imported from the corporate world. Though Mexican, Hmong, Chaldean, Haitian and other immigrant children may not have experienced the pre-Brown or even the post-Brown apartheid, they do experience some of the residual effects of segregation structures, such as the white-supremacy ideologies that foster low expectations, low support commitment, alien and remote school leadership and detrimental school practices.

In the final analysis, our problems are not professional or pedagogical. The question is, Will we recognize and nurture the natural genius in all children, or will we tolerate the "savage inequalities" in services?

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Asa Hilliard III, a teacher, psychologist and historian, is the Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education at Georgia State University. He is founder and vice president of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations.

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