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Social and education issues linked to segregation, UD professor says
Ware said the historical connection was the theme for the Redding Symposium, which drew hundreds of students, teachers, civil servants and community members to Clayton Hall April 23. The daylong Redding Symposium, titled "Celebrating the Past, Considering the Present and Contemplating the Future," was held to mark the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended segregation in public schools. The symposium was named after the late Louis L. Redding, a distinguished Delaware civil rights lawyer who represented the plaintiff in two of the six cases that were consolidated and later led to the historic decision on May 17, 1954. “I teach civil right courses, and students generally tend not to be aware of Brown and the history, so it’s important that people have a context of where we were 50 years ago to understand where we are now,” Ware said. “It is also important for people to understand that we have not achieved full equality, and there are some issues that still remain. Fifty years ago, the glass was completely empty, and now I think the glass is two-thirds full.” The April 23 event, Ware said, drew a crossection of individuals, who gave positive feedback about their experience. “I was very pleased with the outcome of the symposium,” Ware said. “It was oversubscribedŠ and we had a very large turnout for the keynote speaker as well. We had hoped to reach a broad crossection of the Delaware community, and we were successful,” Ware said. Keynote speaker Jack Greenberg, a top civil rights lawyer, told an audience of more than 500 that Brown vs. Board of Education was the major driving force behind the civil rights movement. “Brown was a catalyst, and it was probably the most important component of all that,” Greenberg, professor at Columbia Law School and former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said. Greenberg, who argued more than 40 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 as Redding's co-counsel, said it was symbolic for him to speak at the symposium because his practice began with a case against UD. “I had done a few other things before the University of Delaware case in 1950, but essentially my legal career began with Parker vs. University of Delaware, the case that held unconstitutional the exclusion of black students from the University of Delaware,” Greenberg said. Greenberg received the Presidential Citizens Medal in January 2001 from President Bill Clinton, who praised him for helping "break down the legal underpinnings of segregation in America." The medal was established in 1969 by President Richard Nixon to honor citizens who have performed exemplary deeds of service for the nation. During the symposium, panelists discussed the history of the decision, including the two Delaware cases, commemorated Redding's work as a civil rights lawyer, examined current desegregation issues and discussed the future of school desegregation. Orlando Camp, one of 11 black 10th graders in the failed attempt to integrate Delaware’s Milford High School in September 1954, said the experience had scarred some of the students for life. “The failure of the Milford school board and the Milford school district was traumatic for us,” Camp said. “Milford High School missed a historical opportunity to be an example to the nation.” The symposium was organized by UD, the American Civil Liberties Union-Delaware, the Metropolitan Wilmington Urban League, Widener University School of Law, Delaware State University, the Delaware Heritage Commission and the Delaware State Bar Association. For more information, visit [www.udel.edu/suapp/brown/index.htm]. Article by Martin Mbugua To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
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