WASHINGTON — It's been 10 years since Cheryl Brown Henderson, the daughter of the namesake plaintiff in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education civil rights case, last stepped into the White House.
On their last visit in 2014, Henderson's family met with America's first black president, Barack Obama.
When the Kansas native and Brown Foundation founder returns this Thursday to meet with President Joe Biden and the families involved in the case, she will celebrate another milestone: This marks the 70th anniversary of the May 17, 1954 verdict. School desegregation.
“I always like to say that schools were the battle, but society was the target,” Henderson, 73, said in an interview with USA TODAY. “It began dismantling other aspects of Jim Crow and the Black Codes.”
This case sparked major developments in civil rights, from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Also in attendance were the plaintiff's family and his nearly 20 other plaintiffs, as well as officials from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which organized most of the groups. Some of the civil rights cases brought to the Supreme Court will travel to Washington, D.C., to mark the occasion.
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Then-Vice President Biden did not have a chance to meet with Mr. Henderson during his previous visit. But in some ways, Thursday's meeting in the Oval Office is historic and emblematic of the president's own evolution on important civil rights issues.
Biden now faces an election that many in the United States see not just as Biden versus former President Donald Trump, but as future versus past.
Conservatives across the country say diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have gone too far and are pushing for changes in educational standards, shaping hiring decisions, and changing cultural norms in ways they see as a departure from traditional America. claims to be doing so.
Progressives see the contest as a fight to maintain government protections for marginalized groups across the country, including people of color and LGBTQ people. And they need look no further than overturning another monumental case: Roe v. Wade. It shows how weak these protections really are.
Henderson said his message when he meets with Biden will be about the fragility of American democracy and the development of court rulings that overturn the “separate but equal” principle as unconstitutional. .
“Democracy is in crisis right now, and the White House is one of the symbols of democracy,” she said. “Democracy begat the rule of law, and the rule of law begat Brown v. Board of Education.”
Biden's nod to history
Biden plans to commemorate the Brown v. Board of Education decision with a series of events this week.
In addition to the White House meeting, he will speak Friday at the African American History Museum in Washington, D.C., and will hold a private meeting with leaders of black fraternities and sororities that make up the Divine Nine. . Mr. Biden will give the commencement address Sunday morning at Morehouse College, a private school for black men in Atlanta, and will give the keynote address at the NAACP dinner in Detroit that evening.
Biden was 11 years old at the time of the landmark ruling, which included plaintiffs from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and his home state of Delaware.
As a senator in the 1970s, he opposed the forced integration of schools through a process known as “busing,” in which black students were brought into white communities for classes in order to increase racial diversity. He also led efforts to quell the outbreak. program.
His policy stances became a flash point during the 2019 presidential debate when he was competing for the Democratic nomination. He came under fire from none other than future vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who said she used to take him to school by bus as a child.
The black community later gave Biden his first victory in South Carolina, which led to his return to the race. The support of civil rights leader and Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn played a major role. Biden then selected Harris as the candidate to join him on his own ticket. When they were elected, she was the highest-ranking black woman ever to hold a high-ranking office.
He made history again by sending Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Henderson called Harris' election and Jackson's appointment “a momentous event.” She hopes to one day meet the first black woman to serve on the high court. “This special presidential and vice presidential team is unique and has a direct connection to Brown,” Henderson said.
Mr. Henderson's last White House visit, when Mr. Obama was president, was equally, if not more, pivotal. She recalled that when the country's first black president arrived, “everyone was on their knees and crying.”
“He looked around the room and just said, look where we are now,” she recalled. “And everyone in the room understood what he meant.”
reason for celebration
Henderson was only 3 years old when Brown was selected. She and other children whose parents were plaintiffs have relied primarily on her research and the memories of their elders to tell their case.
She founded the foundation in 1988 to publicly communicate and educate the public in affirming the 14th Amendment.
“One of the reasons we created the foundation is to help our state and our city of Topeka embrace this history and to make sure that it's not a negative thing and that what we've done for our country is actually a positive thing. It was about helping them realize that it was a thing,” she said. .
Henderson said her mother, Leora Brown Montgomery, was pregnant when the NAACP approached the family about joining the lawsuit. Her late father, Oliver Brown, studied under an African Methodist Episcopal minister and worked full time as a welder. Ms. Henderson said her mother convinced Ms. Henderson, who is seeking leadership in the church, to sign her suit.
He ended up being a plaintiff for 10 of the 13 families that made up the group.
At the time, workplaces, neighborhoods and some churches were already integrated in Kansas, she explained. In Kansas, only elementary schools in cities with a population of 15,000 or more were quarantined. Henderson's sister, Linda, was one of the black children rejected from an all-white school.
When the Supreme Court's decision was handed down, Topeka was one of the public school systems that quickly followed suit. Mr. Henderson said he started attending the school the following year in 1955.
Henderson, who currently lives in Florida, still returns to Kansas to commemorate the anniversary. He plans to return Friday after Biden's speech at the museum.
Henderson said the event with Biden at the White House for litigants was the latest in a wide range of events that previous administrations, including Republican former President George W. Bush, have hosted groups on important anniversaries. He said that the idea came together after he informed the organizers. Thursday will be her eighth visit to the White House.