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NEA Celebrates Brown v. Board

Association participates in a yearlong series of activities and events commemorating the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic desegregation decision.

Among a host of activities commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, NEA is co-sponsoring an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, titled “Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education.” The exhibit opened May 15 and will run for one year. Find out more at www.americanhistory.si.edu/brown/exhibition/index.html.

On May 17, NEA President Reg Weaver and other education leaders—including Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose father was an original plaintiff in the case—took part in a special Court TV live Webcast to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the seminal Brown v. Board of Education decision that paved the way for the desegregation of the nation’s public schools.

NEA has also supported a study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project on the nation’s return to school segregation over the past 10 years. The report, “Brown at 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare?” is available at www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg04/brown50.pdf.

In addition, NEA co-sponsored an essay contest targeted at students from historically Black colleges and universities on the impact of Brown v. Board of Education.

Long-time NEA higher education leader VirginiaAnn Greer Shadwick will be honored with the 2004 Mary Hatwood Futrell Award for furthering women’s rights in education. The award, to be presented at the annual NEA Human and Civil Rights Dinner Saturday, July 3, during the 2004 NEA Annual Meeting, will honor Shadwick, a librarian at San Francisco State University, for her 30 years of work dedicated to ensuring that the predominately female librarians in the California State University (CSU) system have parity with their male counterparts in salary, benefits, and professional development opportunities.

The NEA Student Program will sponsor the 10th annual Outreach to Teach Project this summer in Prince George’s County, Maryland, at the Longfields Elementary School, about 15 miles from Washington, D.C., the site of this year’s Annual Meeting.

More than 300 volunteers from the NEA Student Program, NEA-Retired, NEA Education Support Professionals, and NEA Higher Education will join local Association and school system volunteers to redecorate bulletin boards, make repairs, plant shrubbery, paint, clean, sweep, and landscape as part of the effort. Want to join up? Contact Malcolm B. Staples at 202-822-7123 or mstaples@nea.org.