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I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. The legacy of Brown vs. the Board of Education is almost immeasurable. And in her new book Martha Minow the dean of Harvard Law School lays out how far reaching the reverberations of that landmark decision are the case not only guarantee that schools will uphold racial equality. It inspired social movements for students spanning the diversity spectrum from socio economic status to sexual orientation. Yet more than half simply following Brown parents and policymakers still debate whether the ruling requires all inclusive classrooms. And today and parts of America schools seem more segregated than ever. From there we look at segregation from a different perspective. Young students. We'll talk to writer rich Michelson about his latest children's book bussing Brewster up next inequities in America from ground to busing. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. The Midwestern

U.S. is taking a beating from what may be one of the strongest storms to hit the region in decades. Alex Keefe with Chicago Public Radio describes the toll driving rain and high winds are taking on Chicago. It's been a nightmare for commuters so far. The roads were a mess during the morning rush and all planes leaving from O'Hare Airport were grounded for about an hour early this morning. The latest report says more than 300 flights have been canceled out of the airport and power is still out to about 40000 people in the region. Alex Keith reporting hundreds of people are still missing since the tsunami struck off the coast of Sumatra yesterday at least one hundred eight people were killed when a 7.7 magnitude temblor triggered a 10 foot wave that swept away hundreds of homes. Indonesian authorities are also dealing with a volcanic eruption that has injured dozens of people and forced thousands to evacuate. NPR's Anthony Kuhn is tracking developments from Bangkok. Just before dusk on Tuesday Mount Merapi let out a thunderous roar and

began shooting plumes of hot ash high into the air. Merapi whose name means mountain of fire had been groaning and rumbling for hours before that scientists had warned of a violent eruption possibly the biggest in years. Some 11000 villagers living on the volcanoes fertile soil were urged to head to shelters. Authorities forcibly evacuated those within four miles of the crater. Around 20 people suffered burns from the hot ash Merapi is located on the eastern end of the island of Java. Its last eruption in 2006 killed two people more than a thousand perished when Robbie blew its top in one thousand thirty. Anthony Kuhn NPR News Bangkok. Global Medical teams are stepping up operations in Haiti to keep an apparent cholera outbreak from spreading. At least two hundred fifty nine people have died from the disease. The International Criminal Court is asking Kenya to arrest the president of Sudan if he attends a summit there this week. Teri Schultz reports on the tribunals continuing

efforts to prosecute Omar al-Bashir for genocide and other crimes. The ICC has issued two warrants for Bashir based on his suspected involvement in causing the deaths of an estimated 300000 people from war and desperate living conditions in the disputed dar for Region one warrant charges him with five counts of crimes against humanity and the other with three counts of genocide. The court has now asked Kenya to let it know by October 29 if there's anything that would prevent the government from arresting the Sudanese leader if he comes to a development summit starting the next day. The African Union has told its members not to cooperate with the prosecution of Bashir. And Kenya chose not to apprehend him. Way visited there in August. For NPR News I'm Teri Shultz. Seeing mixed results on Wall Street Dow Jones Industrial Average down 4 points at eleven thousand one hundred sixty NASDAQ up 8 at twenty four ninety eight. This is NPR. Ford Motor Company is posting a nearly 70 percent jump in its third quarter net income bolstered by higher demand for

popular vehicles and deep cost cutting measures. It's the company's sixth quarterly profit in a row and its best third quarter showing in at least two decades. A federal appeals court has denied Arizona's request to lift a judge's order blocking today's scheduled execution of a death row inmate. Arizona Public Radio's Gillian Ferris Kohl reports the execution is being halted because of questions regarding a drug used in the lethal injection procedure. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied the request to postpone the execution of Jeffrey Landrigan saying more time is needed to consider a challenge of Arizona's use of the knockout drug Theo Penta all defense attorneys have questioned where Arizona Corrections officials obtained the drug as its sole U.S. manufacturer has said it's no longer being produced. Lander Guinn's attorneys argue that Arizona's supply of the open till may have been manufactured by a foreign source not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. They contend their client could suffocate painfully if the knockout drug doesn't work properly rendering Landrigan unconscious before

two other drugs are administered to paralyze his muscles and stop his heart Landrigan was convicted in 1909 of the strangulation and stabbing death of a Phoenix man. For NPR News I'm Gillian Ferris Kohl in Flagstaff Iran's fueling its first nuclear reactor despite Western concerns over the country's nuclear ambitions today the Iranian government announced its first step toward putting the Russian built facility near Bushehr online. Iran maintains no material is being used toward nuclear weapons development. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from IBM working to help midsize businesses become the engines of a Smarter Planet. Learn more at IBM dot com slash engines. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. My guest this hour is Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. Her new book and Brown's way

examines the legacies of Brown vs. the Board of Education with a focus on how this landmark case reverberated beyond racial integration. Dean minnow welcome. Thank you. Listeners we want to hear from you. Parents 50 years from the Brown decision do you still see inequities in the school house. Well do your kids have opportunities never imaginable to previous generations. We're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. That's 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Dean I think it's probably good too to begin this way and that is just to speak about what was before 1954 ruling. I mean this was a nation that was pretty formally segregated by law and there were some informal customs in place as well. And then came in 1954 the Supreme Court decision Brown versus the Board of Education and it was a watershed legislation. Certainly African-American

citizens who felt a weight lifted off of them as never before. This was a whole new America really for the first time. So to display again with can you just speak about the monumental decision that this was. It really is the landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on any subject but especially on race and as you know our Constitution was written with the assumption that we would be a racially divided country. And even after the Civil War and after the enactment of the civil rights the Civil War Reconstruction Amendments the South in particular enacted explicit legislation producing what were called Jim Crow laws segregating every aspect of society schools being only one recreational activities even bookstore during the summer had to be segregated depending on the race of the students who use them. So it tested extraordinarily legally mandated

racially divided society in the south and in the north by practice and often by by by legal methods as well. The ACP which emerged from. A social movement called the Niagara Movement built strategy bringing lawsuits over 30 years and so Brown didn't come out of nowhere. But it still was a monumental decision. I had the good fortune of working for Justice Thurgood Marshall and I interviewed him many times about what was it like and what were your strategies because of course he was the lawyer who argued Brown. And he said you know we were trying to go on two strategies at once one was earlier the Supreme Court had ruled separate but equal satisfies the 14th Amendment and so we were trying to say show is the equal. We're not spending anything like the same amount of money you're not giving the same kind of resources to to black children as you are to white children. And he said and then over time we decided you know that was never going to work as long as there could be this segregation there never were going to be the resources given to black kids that were going to white kids.

Now the five cases that made up the brown legislation were focused on school desegregation. Hopefully school integration at some point but certainly school desegregation initially. But what was understood in that was that really it meant that segregation itself was killed at that moment and that folks could sit in public accommodations that all of these things were were gone away now that was done with. But what I think your book coming back to your book now that we've laid that foundation has made clear to people is that the extensiveness of Brown was really went beyond just school and the desegregation of schools. Can you just give us a sense of what you mean by that. Well thank you. You know you're absolutely right. I think that when the 50th anniversary of Brown came around in 2004 there were a lot of people saying and I don't disagree it's disappointing because schools are still racially separated in this country but that neglects how monumentally significant this decision was in

ending really Jim Crow the idea that it ever makes any sense by law or by custom to separate people by race and yes went way beyond schools to every kind of public accommodation employment or any kind of facilities you know cannot Kenna. Retailers say that you can't try on clothes here unless you're over certain races so those practices were widespread and they ended. They didn't and right away it took another 10 years to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act but Brown was the death knell of those kinds of attitudes and brown established the ideal of equality in schools but also equal opportunity for every kid regardless of their race their ethnicity their background. What I've decided to pursue is the repercussions of brown even beyond race. So with regard to children of immigrants or children who are themselves immigrants children who are learning English children who are disabled girls boys whether the issue is sexual orientation equality became unleashed in America

as an ideal equal opportunity yes focused on schools and that is the focus of my book. But the repercussions of brown way beyond schools similarly that stimulated social movements on behalf of other kinds of oppressed groups and Brown really is at the core of all of that. So the book is called in Brown's wake and it examines the legacy of Brown versus the Board of Education. My guest is Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow who is the author of this book and again listeners we want to hear from you. The book looks at a 954 decision. But we're talking about the its impact today 2010. Fifty six years after we are still in the midst of the wake of brown is the title of your book implies we're at 8 7 7 3 0 1 8 8 9 seventy 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. So in real terms let's just start with what was the initial what people believe is the most simple purpose of brown which was just desegregate schools. And that actually didn't happen until after the second Brown ruling there was more than one Brown

ruling there were two. And at that point the court had to set some time frame which actually didn't really. It said with all deliberate speed you know people need to quit resisting this and get get about the business of desegregating. Now I note for people who are listening saying hey this legal solution was not the be all and the end all. I am very aware that it took people in the streets of the civil rights movement coupled with this legal document to make something make this be real so the law was there but it didn't become real until people protested and held it up and said to the rest of America the law is the law. What do you say about it and Americans of course said This is not acceptable and we have to change this. So but my point is that. As you look at the wake of that now and we talk about in terms of in 2010 is it possible segregated schools. Yeah. And you speak to that. Well absolutely and you are so right to distinguish desegregation from integration. So what Brown did is it said you can't that the state the

government school boards cannot by law directed students go to different schools based on their race. It held out the possibility and the hope of integration meaning that kids would not only go to the same schools but that there would be actually. Martin Luther King Jr. later called the beloved community that we would actually thrive on each other's successes that we would care about one another and regard less of race. Sadly we have not even achieved a world in which kids go to the same school with each other regardless of race and a lot of that has to do with residential separations So right now a large urban school districts in this country are on an average 70 percent nonwhite kids in some places it's 80 percent some places even higher where suburban and smaller communities are 90 percent white. And so what's happened in the last 30 years really it's since the mid 70s that this change has really become dramatic is that people have ended up living in these very different

racialized communities and that and that has made the use of local school district ing. A tool actually to perpetuate separating kids in the schools and when the Supreme Court decided sadly 1074 that suburbs and cities would not be part of the same kind of distracting plan as a cure for separated schooling in that case called Milliken versus Bradley involving Detroit. That really was a signal that white families didn't want to go to an integrated school move to the suburbs or you're worried your you hear bad things about these schools you hear they have bad test results move the suburbs. And unfortunately that's been the pattern ever since. I will say this that the commitment to equality and equal opportunity did survive. And so it's bipartisan. You know President George W. Bush actually with No Child Left Behind whatever you think about the law it actually for the first time said we're going to gather the achievement scores by race we're going to actually invest in schools that are

not performing and equal opportunity is the goal of American schooling. And that was not true. Now in 54 It was a question of resources because of separate pretty go equal and now as you've just described this tax base which makes a very sharp division of resources in some communities. We're back really essentially to separate but equal and not just simply by race. It's completely true and I think that the effort to find new strategies continues. And interestingly one of the movements of follow Brown was to try to then tackle poverty and say that poor kids shouldn't have to go to school separate from kids who come from families with means. And interestingly this is one of those moments where a defeat becomes actually a source of possible hope so the Supreme Court in the United States rejected the argument that that class social economic class is a basis for the kind of remedy that the court itself that are announced in Brown v. Board of Education because of that school

systems now can Ixion kids to school in order to produce socioeconomic mixing. There's no barrier to that. So there are many communities that do that and that can produce integration certainly by socioeconomic status but also by race because there's such a CO CO variance between race and class so some school systems have done that and said OK we're going to regional school system and you know go to your neighborhood school. And it said school choice you pick your top choices and we as a school system will try to make sure that there's equal opportunity and therefore have a factor about where each kid goes to school to make sure that there's a mixing of kids from different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds. What they cannot do is use race in that form. And the Supreme Court decided in actually 2007 that even communities that voluntarily choose to use race voluntarily as part of a voluntary integration plan are not allowed to do it. So if it's based on socio economic look at a program like Medco has long been here in Boston and it's you know at its base is busing kids from certain

neighborhoods. Now you can look at look at them and tell that there are some race involved here but if you took that out there is still a socio economic mix singly. Exactly right and that's still permissible and it's a it's a tremendous program. And there are some other communities that also experiment with programs like that. You know at this moment it's school choice is the buzzword. And for a time people thought that that would mean vouchers for private schools. There really hasn't much of a political appetite for that around the country. A little bit there pockets of it but really much more popular is the charter school movement and President Obama has made that a priority. And we've just changed the laws here in Massachusetts to make it possible to have more charter schools. One hope is that charter schools will attract more good teachers and invest it investment in schools but another hope is that actually these will be regional or citywide and they could attract kids from different backgrounds and produce racial integration and socio economic integration that's a hope as a consequence as a consequence. That's

right. Now I don't think it will happen unless people really work on it. And one of the dangers that I write about in the book is actually intended or not some of these charter schools may end up having even more of a segregated effect by saying OK a focus of the school is an Afrocentric curriculum. Well that's kind of signaling some kids are going to want to go there and other kids won't. Or they mean the school in a way you know with a Hispanic name which is again going to draw some kids and not others. So I think that there are some concerns here about how we set up the charter school system. We'll be continuing our discussion on the other side of this break. Talk about specialized schooling in the wake of brown My guest is Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. We're talking about her new book in Brown's wake. Legacies of America's educational landmark listeners let us know what this landmark decision means for you. Did it change your life. Were you in the first wave of the segregated. Schools. 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. Stay tuned. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you.

And from Boston Private Bank and Trust Company. Committed to helping successful individuals and businesses accumulate preserve and grow their wealth. You can learn more at Boston. Private Bank dot com. And from Solomon's collection and fine rugs in Quincy. Now accepting entries from kids ages 11 to 14 for their designer rug contest for the WGBH 2011 auction to download an entry form you can go to Solomon rugs dot com and from a new window Natick featuring Hunter Douglas window treatments including silhouette luminescent and pirouetted. In new window staff can help you select the right Hunter Douglas products and will measure and install them in your window. Dotcom neurologist Oliver Sacks is famous for his case studies of patients with unusual perceptual problems. On the next FRESH AIR we talk with sacks about his. New book which covers visual disorders including two of his own face blindness which prevents him from recognizing faces and a tumor in his right eye that created visual distortions and nations.

Joining us this afternoon at two on eighty nine point seven WGBH shop for the best series movies music and books from public television and public radio at WGBH dot org. And not only will you be supporting this nation but today only 25 percent off your entire order and everything will ship to take advantage of this incredible discount. Just enter radio checkout. Offer ends tonight at midnight. It's all online at shop org. If a street could pose a question what might it ask when is it going to end. I'm Philip Martin. Join me this afternoon at 5:54 drive along Blue Hill Avenue. If a street could speak on eighty nine point seven WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Kelly Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in my guest is Martha Minow dean of Harvard Law School. We're talking about

her new book in Brown's wake legacies of America's educational landmark. Listeners if you want to join the conversation give us a call at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70 teachers has Brown versus the Board of Education changed your classroom. Do you still see inequities in the school house. We're 8 7 7 3 0 1. Eighty nine seventy. Now before the break we were laying out Brown's importance the extensiveness of its reach really in terms of impact. And I think as people are driving around or eating or lunch or whatever they're doing at this moment they may ask this question OK what does that have to do with me in 2010. We've spoken a little bit about that but but. Sure what you really want people to focus on. Well. One of one of the things that I do think is worth focusing on is the hope and the disappointment of Brown really represents something that's very alive today which is Can law produce equality can law produce equal opportunity. And I think the answer is a mixed one. The answer is that law

can actually stop very bad things. But law itself doesn't really produce very good things you need things you need social movements you need in the school context good teachers you need resources to be invested. One of the other messages that I really hope people focus on is that the promise and the ideals represented by Brown actually inspired people to start social movements in many other areas Take for example disability rights before Brown vs. Board of Education It was very routine for children with all kinds of disabilities physical learning disabilities and others just to be shunted away put in separate schools never see anybody else. And Brown helped to inspire a whole group of people to pursue litigation very much like the brown litigation challenging those practices. And we now have federal legislation state legislation that has dramatically changed people's lives. And it's. Part of what led to the Americans with Disability Act and now people with disabilities have jobs and live much fuller lives than they ever did

before. So but there again it took a social movement and it took people pushing for legislation as well as judicial action. The courts can only do a little. The courts can say stop doing that terrible thing if the courts aren't so effective at affirmative change. And sadly Brown is the best example of that because when Brown to the second decision 1055 directed the district courts to come up with solutions come up with court ordered plans those court ordered plans whether they use busing or redistricting are have to be understood as failures because they did not produce integrated schools. They did for a time there was a just about a 10 year period where there was some serious what a serious desegregation I still use the word integration gets to me it has an ideal that it just has not been achieved. And so I can speak personally because I desegregated my high school. Yes so I'm I'm very clear about what happened in what's there now and what that means. But you know but that did happen and that was and that the power of that

cannot be taken away. But here we are in 2010 and I find it interesting that in your book you make note that people on different sides of ideological arguments are claiming Brown as the president how can that be. So it's you're absolutely right on both points so between really 1964 in 1900 to there was serious in force Mr. Brown. And by 1972 the southern states that had had lawfully imposed racial segregation were the most de segregated schools in the country. And so it showed that with the combination of the court orders and then the Department of Justice and at that time the Department of Health and education welfare and state officials and business community leaders you could actually produce a change in schools. What happened then was a change in the politics and President Nixon who initially had supported this effort. He started looking at opinion polls and there were constitutional amendments introduced in the Congress

and around the country trying to stop busing and other techniques and within 10 years you know the courts went the other direction and the federal enforcement stopped and the whole direction pushing for desegregation and pretty much ended. I do think that this whole story does indicate however that if you pull together the different resources in a society not just the courts but also the lead the legislature also the executive branch and the states and the business community you can make change. And we have seen that happen. And that is why people in evoke Brown on on all sides of the fence so just for example the movement for school vouchers very much pursued by an interesting coalition a business leaders. Who believe in competition in the marketplace on the one hand religious leaders who like the idea of supporting religious schools on another hand some members of the African-American community who saw this as an opportunity if there were vouchers to enable poor kids to go to

religious schools they get a better education. That coalition actually was inspired by Brown and some of the litigators who brought the lawsuits leading to the Supreme Court approving the use of public dollars to pay for private school vouchers in religious schools in 2002. The leaders of that movement explicitly said we studied the end. We followed their steps precisely we want to do exactly the same thing. Brown was our model. And the other example there's a school in New York City a public school called the Harvey Milk School which is a school established for kids who are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender. Why. Because those kids had been facing such harassment and difficulty in the regular public schools that it seemed just necessary for them to have a separate space just to have an opportunity to go to a safe school. Also many of those kids actually were suicidal so that's what was found in 1985 when it was

expanded about eight years later they were protesters. On the street both sides of the protesters some saying there shouldn't be such a school others saying we need the school we need bigger. Both sides are claiming this is the heir to Brown versus Board of Education. The ones who wanted the school said this is how we have show sure equality for kids regardless of their identity. Those on the other side said it was about integration. This is putting kids in a separate school so Brown has become in many ways a symbol a symbol of the ideal of equality. The ideal of recognising that because of your identity you shouldn't be shunted into a second class citizenship and at the same time it really does represent you know the limitations of what courts can do alone and how do you explain. Separate to achieve equal in the wake of brown.

Well what a good question. I think one place where this is so vivid is in the rise right now of single gender schools. So there is an enemy and you have wells like hey I am I'm a fan of single gender schools but what's so fascinating is again around the time of Brown some people thought well that we should have separate schools for boys and girls and there was a real movement afoot to try to challenge that. It didn't really go too far. The only thing that was achieved was that there had to be equal chances for boys and girls who didn't have to be in the same school. There was a challenge to the exclusion of girls from certain kinds of opportunities for so for example a military school you can't have a military school and say we only can have boys if you don't have girls a separate school for girls and if you create a separate school and it's really a sham that doesn't work. But recently really in the last eight years there's been a resurgence of public interest in separate schools for boys and girls. And so actually Hillary Clinton joined in with the Bush administration to support

a graduate of Wellesley now is what I do well. Absolutely. She knew what a good education that was. And so the federal government has supported now experiments with single sex classrooms in 2006 and acted as a final rule supporting and encouraging it bring local school districts money to create single sex schools in the charter school movement there are a lot of single sex schools. And so the idea here is that sometimes you can achieve equality better with separate instruction then with integrated instruction. Why because there's a history of girls going to boys schools and not being given opportunities not being given air time in the classroom not being opportunities to to be in the school plays around the school newspaper. Increasingly the research shows that those boys that are having trouble in the in the classrooms with girls because the girls are doing better academically and so there's an argument for all boy schools. So there's an example where separate but equal has come back with a vengeance.

I think that what's different then in an earlier era is that the emphasis is on equal and really equivalent opportunities. You can't have a military school just for boys. You've got to either let the girls in or create something is very comparable for the girls. Something that you concept that you introduce in your book which I think is interesting and you should explain is the difference between race mixing and integration. What do you mean by race mixing. I mean simply physically putting kids next to each other in the same building who are of different races by integration really mean to point to a much more ample ideal that actually has something to do with the attitudes that people have towards each other. But it also actually pertains to do they talk to each other and do they become friends with each other. Unfortunately we all have seen schools that are supposedly racially mixed and integrated but the kids actually separate out in their social groups. The minute they can and they're actually are really in some

instances a climate in which more prejudice arises than if they didn't even go to the same school. Another problem is schools that the kids enter the same doors but then they're filtered into different classes because of ability tracking which itself can be used in a very prejudicial way. Doesn't have to be but it can be. So integration actually has a very different valence The goal here is that actually becoming friends with and collaborators with and observing on teams with kids of different backgrounds so that you actually are part of each other's lives and you have the same aspirations you care about each other's successes. I think that that's crucial. What is interesting to me is that there is no tradeoff with school achievement so in that period of time when schools briefly in this country really were de segregated test scores for every group went up and that's white kids black kids the racial gap in achievement narrowed. And so whether you want to test this integration ideal by something like

test scores or by something like what kind of social networks do you do you get. Can we build a sense of we in this country. Integration is a much more ambitious goal and we haven't achieved it. I noted earlier that this is we are six years out from the 50th anniversary of Brown versus the Board of Education the landmark decision and I do during that time I was doing quite a bit of speaking about the legacy and promise of Brown and using you know part of my story to talk about it and I was in a class class of many students different races and one student white student raised her hand she said well I see what Brown did for you but I have no idea what it did for me. Oh my God. Actually I thought that was the teacher was appalled of course and everybody with a big push in the crowd. I thought that was a good question. And it allowed me to try to think a little bit more in an accessible way for her to see it and one of the things that I had to say was so much has happened that is so different from the time of 54. That is just

part of your life. So the revolution happened before you. And now it's just a part of normal life and I've you know cited some other examples for her. And she she came around but it was an interesting thing I think that people may you know think about that and in a broader terms that is really what would you have said to her. Well I would have dropped a little bit but I guess I would have said that what education is is it depends on the interactions between people and people on all sides of those relationships benefit. It's not a one way street. I certainly would have said that I also would have said I think something close to what you just said that she's living in a post integration or postie segregated era. And so she doesn't even realize how much she benefits from. Well models like Oprah Winfrey President Obama she didn't even realize what the world would have been like without Brown vs. Board of

Education. President Obama was my student and so I know I have benefited from a kind of educational opportunities in which we get students of all different kinds of backgrounds. One of the things that has changed rather dramatically from the time of Brown is that the rise of immigration and the multi multiracial multiethnic America makes much more complicated this idea of integration. Even if you're talking about mixing people racial mixing does it mean you have proportions that you are supposed to have how many you know Hispanic Americans how many Asian Americans in some communities that there are very few whites does it. Is it integration if you have a school that has Hispanics and Asians and blacks but no whites. These are questions that nobody thought about at the time of Brown. And we are very much beyond the black and white paradigm which people refuse to let go of in some way.

So. What do you want. You know this is a book for anyone to access of course but the biggest takeaway that you would like for anybody hearing our discussion to have. I note that the word weight means to become conscious of to be roused from. But it used if in the wake of a real shattering leaving. And so there are those two things happening at the same time really end up ending in the use of in the wake of. And I just wondered what your general take would be for those that you would like for the people to ponder is is we right. Thank you for recognizing that there's even a third which is awake you know which is you know there might be a little bit of a few an Ariel feeling about some of this. I guess there are three things that I hope people will will think hard about. One is that it is possible to use law to mobilize social action to bring about change again but courts can't do it alone. The second is and I really do feel strongly about this that that Brown ended up

being a model and a symbol for all of America and indeed for the whole world and it inspired social movements around disability rights around gender equality and that this is a clue to us that. You know what my colleague Lani Guinier talks about the miner's canary that often times when someone who is experiencing the harshness of our society the most may actually offer a clue to everybody else. And so the struggles for racial equality actually offered an avenue for challenging many other kinds of exclusions that have those challenges when they've succeeded I think have made all of society better. And the third thing that I do feel rather strongly also about is that as we explore something like school choice we should be very mindful that again it's up to us it's up to us as a polity which direction do we want to go in so. Let me let me just say to take a minute to talk about school choice school choice as

a practice started as a way to avoid Brown vs. Board of Education. There were Southern communities that said OK we're supposed to desegregate we will and the laws that say you have to go to schools based on your race. And I will let the kids choose. Well surprise surprise people did not choose the white kids certainly didn't choose to go to the historically black schools and the black students didn't choose to go to the white schools fear of violence I mean there was there were some. That was widespread. So the Supreme Court ultimately said freedom of choice plans are not acceptable to achieve the promise of Brown there have to be programs that promise realistically to work. The next phase though of school choice is fascinating and it was exemplified right here in Boston where the courts in charged with enforcing Brown versus Board of Education came up with plans to promote desegregation with the hope that there would be carrots that would encourage people to choose integrated schools so Judge Garrity approve the use of magnet schools the idea there be a special school that he would have a science

curriculum it would draw kids from all kinds of communities or an arts curriculum their school choice was supposed to be a tool of racial desegregation. And the next phase was the development of school choice really as a technique to try to improve the quality of instruction and here's where the business community came in arguing for competition arguing for bringing in private and public actors to try to improve schools have benchmarks. And now we have the charter school movement that kind of builds on all of them. It is however a challenge at this moment is this school choice movement the new school choice movement which way is it going to go. Is it going to be let loose and therefore people can quote choose freely to then separate themselves again or are we going to come up with ways that actually promote integrating kids from different kinds of backgrounds and. And here it's certainly race but also gender also. Immigration also class absolutely and disability status and

you know I do think that there is a place for special programs for kids of a particular interest or identities. But I would worry very much about the prospects for this country whose greatness has depended on people from different backgrounds working together creating a future. If we have totally a schools that are totally separating people by race by identity characteristics. Fascinating conversation with Martha Minow. Thank you so much for joining us now is the dean of Harvard Law School Her new book is in Brown's wake. Legacies of America's educational landmark. Up next is a look at racial segregation 20 years after the Brown decision busing in the 1970s. We'll talk to richer writer rich Michelson about his new children's book bussing Brewster. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Boston Lyric Opera

presenting its 2010 2011 season opener Puccini's tragic Tosca November 5th through the 16th at the city Schubert theatre. Information available at B L O dot org and from Boston private banking Trust Company Boston private bank provides private and commercial banking and investment management and trust services to individuals and businesses. You can learn more by visiting Boston private bank dot com. And from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Welch and Forbes and the Post Club. Pleased to sponsor news and culture on the new eighty nine point seven. Learn about sponsorship. Add six one seven three hundred fifty five hundred. I'm Lisa Mullins. Students in Colombia's second largest city are dropping out of school because walking to school is too dangerous. This year 31 students have been hit or killed by stray bullets from gang violence. Local authorities are hiring escorts to walk students to and from school. Our story from Nettie in Colombia next time on the world.

Coming up at 3 o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH Public Radio was pretty good all by itself but throw in a cup of incredible coffee and the companionship of your special someone. And well it's a whole different experience which is why eighty nine point seven is inviting you and yours to spend this Valentine's with the WGBH learning tours trip to. Sample some of the world's finest coffee and chocolate and taking plenty of sun while the rest of New England shovel snow. Learn more at slash learning tour. Hello Brian O'Donovan host of a Celtic sojourn here and I just want to remind WGBH members that right now you can reserve your tickets to the eighth annual presentation of A Christmas Celtic social at a discount. Visit WGBH dot org slash Celtic. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. My guest Richard Michelson is an award winning writer and poet. His latest children's book is

busing Brewster which takes place in the 1970s Rich welcome. Hi Kelly good to talk to you again. For our listeners. And I think it's wonderful for you to explain to us now your book was set. It was actually inspired by the Boston busing story but it's not about the Boston busing story. So how were you inspired by the busing busing story to write this book. Well originally I was reading an article in a newspaper where a successful black politician in Boston was talking about having been a part of the original generation after forced busing in Judge Garrity you know try to as you are just talking about integrate or. Get the children from the black neighborhoods to go to school in the right white neighborhoods and of course that meant busing some of the white students out of

their schools. And and this politician was talking about how that movement had given him possibilities and success in his career that he did not think he would otherwise have achieved. But towards the end of the article he mentioned however that he didn't know if it was worth it in the long run. The trauma that he had gone through as a child and that got me thinking about this issue of bussing from a child's point of view you know we really I'm interested in how we politicize our children how we socialize our children. And in the discussions of bussing in the discussion of most political subjects it's our children who are most affected but often don't enter into the conversation. So so that was the genesis of the book. I created my character Brewster and his older brother Brian and I tried to see how things might look from their

six or 10 year old. And it's beautiful it's a beautiful book. I want we're going to direct people to our website to certainly see it and they should you know follow up and see it on your website as well but let me read this small piece of it. I'm up by 5:30 but mom is already frying eggs. Don't you worry Brewster she tells me you're going to like Central. They've got rooms for art and music and a roof that doesn't leak. There's even a swimming pool inside the building and a real library bursting full of books. I don't know how to read or how to swim. But I'm glad mom is happy. Maybe you'll be President someday Brewster she tells me. And she looks at me proud like I already am. That's a really sweet line in the book. Thank you. Later on Brian Brewster and his older brother Brian get on the bus to go into the school. And here's just a little snippet. What's that sign say I ask Brian. There's white people lined up on both sides of the street. Welcome to central Brian answers. But then I see him give Jules one

of his better don't tell on me looks slam bam crash. I didn't even see the rock I just heard the glass shatter. Brian squishes me down under the seat. Wish we could stay at Franklin Bryant says. From down here Franklin seems a million miles away. So this for me was really interesting to think about small children being on those buses and not actually knowing or just try to go through the emotion of being attacked by groups of people and not understanding why. You really counter that. Thank you. I mean young children you know even even if they're not bused or no matter what they're going through in their home life there's always this entering a new situation going to a new school they're worried about making friends that worried about bullies they're worried about how they're going to fit in. So hopefully the story as I wrote it is relevant to every child to date regardless of the circumstances. I try to you know

mostly we need to create a story because that's what's going to make the children interested in reading the book I want them to care about Proust I want to care about Brian freckled face. I want to think about how they go through life and it's a story the backdrop is the busing issue in the 70s and that's something that children you know it's an introduction for them. It's something that will come to think about later on maybe as they encounter this subject in all the books throughout their life but primarily for me the focus has to be on the feeling you know how these children feel and how they're going to fit in and this extra burden that was put on these two children at this time going to a whole new school broad is very enthusiastic at the beginning. He can't wait and he happens to be a very optimistic child even at the end. What what resonated why did this topic resonate with you.

I know you said you want to tell the story about it but one of the things that our listeners won't know is that you're a white guy for one thing I know I can. They can tell by my voice if you're a white guy writing this and I wonder I know why you were inspired to write it but why did the story itself the scenario itself resonate with you. Well a lot of my children's books are based on racial issues my previous book to this is called as good as anybody Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Joshua Heschel is amazing march towards freedom. I have a book called Happy Feet a book called across the alley which is you know which is about a Jewish boy and a black child who are a lot of play with each other but their bedroom windows face each others and they become best friends and I but I grew up in an area in east New York Brooklyn when I was born. It was probably about 95 percent Jewish and 12 years later a short time by

the time actually that King and Heschel were marching from Selma to Montgomery arm in arm that area had become about 95 percent black and my dad had a little hardware store in the area and I used to go in and work on weekends. And I was often the only white face in the well it seemed to me in the world at the time. And. And then. I would think back or I'd go back home. Eventually we did move to the suburbs where I don't think there was a single black child in the school. Well I know there wasn't. So this whole this whole racial movement from the time I was born to the time I was 12 fascinated me on a personal level. My dad did not make it out of New York he was killed in a robbery attempt and he was you know to I think to the he was seen in many ways as the white guy

still in the town even though most of his friends most of his customers were lovely people they were black people they were his best friends. But so for me writing my books is a way to try to I guess heal the racial divide and come to terms with what I'm dealing with myself. This is the 1970s which isn't that long ago. But you know this these kids don't usually know about this error they just accept that this is the way things have been. There is some bussing going on in certain communities or there may be more understanding I wouldn't say the 1954 Brown versus Board decision but still. Is it your sense that people read this book kids that read this book are learning about it for the first time. Very much so and actually it doesn't seem maybe to you or I that long ago but the 70s to young kids today may as well be ancient Greece. In fact it was

yesterday on a book tour and I stopped at a bunch of schools in Brooklyn and as your previous guest was talking about I have to say it was speaking about the ideas of desegregation to these young kids I was speaking to a fourth fifth sixth graders some third graders as well. And yet the schools that I went into were almost perfectly segregated for the first school I went into and I was almost entirely black the next one was 100 percent Hispanic. So you know in a sense we've we've come a long way to get back to where we were originally. The children were fascinating and wonderful to talk to. Mostly we talked about you know how they fit in you know how they would feel if they had to go out of their neighborhood to a school to a different school. You know I think we often don't realize how complicated our children's emotions are and how much they understand the realities they're often

left out of these conversations and for me even though this is a very political book it's not taking a stand on anything it's really introducing a subject and hopefully starting discussions with children in the classroom or in their home just to you know talk about their own feelings. Well I don't think there's that many books looking at it from a kid's point of view of these issues of integration. There is of course warriors don't cry by Melba Patillo Beals who was 15. And one of the Little Rock Nine integrating the Central High School in Little Rock. But that was you know 1957. Then we have the story of Ruby Bridges she wrote her own story she was six years old when she was trying to integrate the night at the school in New Orleans William Frantz Elementary School in 1960. And she was the subject of a Norman Rockwell. Painting called The problem we all live with but force true. But there are you know as I thought about it there's not really this subject matter addressed for small children. So I note that you have probably made history

yourself here and writing a book that looks at it from the child's point of view. Children that we need to begin with I mean it's the kids you know and for me you know and I wish people could see this book it's beautifully illustrated by Archie Roth. And you know and hopefully they'll be able to go to the website and see some of the illustrations as well. But you know I think that it's important that we give our children these stories in wonderful art you know this is this is how we're forming. Where is their future. Rich what children's books did you grow up on that did for you what would you want your books to be doing for the kids today. Well you know this is a this is how Here's a funny question for me because I really didn't grow up reading my many books. I don't recall my parents were both wonderful in every way shape or form but I don't recall being read to as a child. I was not I didn't wasn't familiar with

children's books I as an adult I started out as a poet. I was introduced to children's books much later on. I think you know that I also am an art dealer and I have a gallery and some of the artists I represented started illustrating children's books. And it was really as an adult I was that I first was introduced to this world and I realized that some of our country's best artists people like Maurice Sendak. Leonard Baskin Jules Feiffer I mean there's just tons of wonderful artists who were taking this as a form very seriously and as a poet myself I realized that picture books are really the best of both worlds and really brought my own interests together. Poetry art. And when they were when it works in a picture book I think it's just a wonderful thing. One last thing that I think is so funny what you wrote this book in 2003 and

yet there's a thread in it with Brewster's mom saying maybe one day you'll grow up to be president. And of course Barack Obama is the first black president. Now this is this is what happens in the world of picture books because there's quite a lag between the time I wrote this story and then sold it and then the illustrator was hired and did his work for more than a year and then we have to wait another year until publication. And in fact when I first wrote this book. I had never heard the name Barack Obama and I think that most people probably hadn't. Or the general public certainly hadn't. And Brewster wants to grow up to be president he realizes what an impossible dream that might be. His mother is hoping and the librarian Mr. Grady also is encouraging him and I think if you had asked me at the

time I certainly didn't think I would see a black president in my lifetime certainly not before the book was published. And I think my characters were much more optimistic than I was and in this case I was thrilled to be proved wrong. Oh I think it's just wonderful and I'm pretty sure Bruce will be the second black president. Richard Michelson is an award winning poet and writer His latest book is busing Brewster to learn more about him visit our website or log on to our Michaelson dot com. Rich Michelson thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Kelly. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley follow us on Twitter or friend the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Alan Mathis and produced by Chelsea Marrs and a white knuckle B and Abby Ruzicka. This is the Calla Crossley Show. We are a production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and

culture.