"Reflections on Little Rock"

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

I’ve outlined above a bit of the fallacy I see in Arendt’s assertion that “if it were only a matter of equally good education for my children, an effort to grant them equality of opportunity, why was I not asked to fight for an improvement of schools for Negro children…” I think a statement like that demonstrates Arendt’s ignorance either with the case law, as it already existed, or its function within the U.S. Clearly, demanding improved black schools was a legal struggle that was not available to black parents after Brown v. Board was finally decided, and for them to take social responsibility, in the alternative, would, I imagine, have been nearly impossible. As I said, how could one expect the black population to eschew public schools, where they were not welcomed, and with their own financial muscle build—what—private black schools? Considering a more complete history of civil rights struggles, I think Arendt’s assertion borders on the absurd.

But absurdity turns to unseemliness when considering this statement by Arendt: “Moreover, if I were a Negro I would feel that the very attempt to start desegregation in education and in schools had not only, and very unfairly, shifted the burden of responsibility from the shoulders of adults to those of children.” [emphasis added] Black efforts to desegregate this country, on all fronts, weren’t started with Brown v. Board, they weren’t even started fifty years before with Plessy v. Ferguson. Just a bit of research shows dozens upon dozens of cases black advocates brought before the country’s highest courts at efforts in desegregating the country, and all before they did so in public schools.

So in the interest of full disclosure—as Arendt, after accusing black parents of thrusting onto their children the full responsibility of desegregation efforts, didn’t feel it necessary to discuss cases outside Brown v. Board—I’m going to give you a tiny helping of the numerous cases I came across.

In February 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment yet to be ratified, a black woman, Catharine Brown, bought a train ticket to travel from Alexandria to Washington. When she tried to take a seat in one of two cars, she was directed to board the alternative car. Upon refused seating in her chosen car, Brown insisted permission for seating in the car “appropriated for white ladies.” She was then put out “with force, and, as she alleged, some insult.” She boarded the colored-only car, rode it to Washington and exited the train without further incident. Thereupon she sued the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad Company in the Supreme Court of the District of Washington D.C. for discrimination. The trial court entered judgment in favor of Brown. On appeal, under Railroad Company v. Brown, the Supreme Court ruled in 1873 that, when the Washington and Alexandria Railroad Company, in extending its road from the south side of the Potomac into Washington, did so with “Congressional aid,” they submitted to “several provisions.” Among them, Congress directed the Railroad Company that “no person shall be excluded from the cars on account of color.” District court judgment was finally affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, awarding damages to Brown. Thus, began what I’ve found to be a long, convoluted history, involving numerous cases and attempts at setting various precedent, all directed towards desegregation.

Consider that in 1883, the Supreme Court compiled five different cases at 109 U.S. 3, all addressing equal access to public services, none dealing with schools. U.S. v. Stanley addressed the denial of the black petitioner accommodations at an inn; U.S. v. Nichols addressed the denial of the black petition accommodations at a hotel; U.S. v. Ryan and U.S. v. Singleton addressed the denial of the black petitioners’ access to theaters; and U.S. v. Robinson addressed the denial of the black petitioner to the ladies’ car of a railroad company. Here, in five different states, black advocates attempted to gain equal access to public accommodations, social institutions and transportation, not public schools, long before the twentieth century.

Then, of course, in 1896 we had the charming “separate but equal” finding by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson. Again, this was a case initiated in an attempt to desegregate railroad cars. And though Plaintiffs’ made their case well enough for the courts to recognize that it is unconstitutional for people not to be given equal access based on race, the Courts made the erroneous “separate but equal” finding, continuing to bar the way for desegregation.

And, yet, desegregation efforts were not stayed. In Chiles v. Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company, argued before the Supreme Court in 1910, a plaintiff sued for forced desegregation in a railroad car, here the argument turned on accommodations for interstate travelers. And again, in McCabe v. Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, argued before the Supreme Court in 1914, separate but equal was challenged because accommodations had not been made for restaurant and sleeping cars on the desegregated railways. I came across literally dozens of challenges at desegregation just with regard to railroad cars.

But desegregation efforts weren’t limited to railroad cars, restaurants, hotels and theaters. In Buchanan v. Warley, argued before the Supreme Court in 1917, petitioner, a white seller, sued the city against an ordinance that prevented him from selling property to a black buyer because houses in that neighborhood were white-only dwellings.

Or even if we just consider the cases where black advocates attempted desegregation of education on the collegiate and professional schooling levels. Again, Arendt doesn’t bother to note efforts that adult black advocates made at desegregating education specifically, long before Brown v. Board.

Berea College v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908. In this case, the political sphere came crashing down on the social sphere. Berea College, a private institution, was fined $1000 by the state for permitting and receiving “both the white and negro race as pupils for instruction in said college,” in violation of Kentucky law 1904, Chapter 85, Section 1. The finding, and therefore the segregation law, was affirmed by the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. Thus a successful social desegregation effort was overturned by the political institution.

Missouri Ex Rel. Gaines v. Canada, Registrar of the University of Missouri, et al. argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1938. Here a law student was refused admission to the University of Missouri Law School because he was black. He sued for admittance and further argued that attendance at U of Missouri Law School gave Missouri residents advantages in the practice of law.

Sweatt v. Painter, et al. argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1950. Again, a black student sued for relief where he was denied admission to the University of Texas Law School based on race.

McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, et al., argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1950. Here a black student attending the University of Oklahoma under “segregated condition” where he “was required to attend class, sit, eat, and study apart from other students,” argued that such altered treatment “handicapped” “his pursuit of effective graduate instruction.”

Or, consider that black advocates tried vehicles other than desegregation to achieve equal treatment in education under the law. In 1899, in Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, black citizens of Richmond County, Georgia filed suit seeking an injunction to stop the use of county taxes from benefiting all-white high schools until an all-black high school was available for black students. That suit was granted in the lower court, but Georgia’s state Supreme Court reversed the injunction and affirmed the reversal on appeal. Here black citizens hadn’t even sued for desegregation, they merely sued to stop their tax money from benefiting white schools, yet still couldn’t find relief.

And these are just a sampling of the many cases I found.

For Arendt to state that attempts at desegregation started in public schools, for her to accuse black advocates of throwing onto their children the responsibility for desegregation—as though it was consciously done and with no or minimal effort at addressing desegregation elsewhere—is a patently false representation of the history of civil rights. I looked for rebuttals to this article, from those more qualified than I, and couldn’t find any that didn’t hint at or outright accuse Arendt of racism—a criticism that I think is misplaced. When I couldn’t find anything that I thought addressed Arendt’s either ignorant or maliciously false claims, I decided I wouldn’t comment further. But, in the end, it continued to bother me, and I couldn’t let it lie.

I find it offensive that an immigrant—who from the moment her white feet touched U.S. soil, secured many of the very rights naturally-born citizens of the U.S. spent nearly a century, at the time of the essay, trying to secure—should heap false criticism on the efforts of those citizens to secure those rights. Not to say that Arendt is precluded from criticizing civil rights efforts, I’d just appreciate a little more effort at discerning the full facts of the matter before doing so. There are a lot of ideas Arendt introduces in this essay that are worth consideration, but each time she dapples in history to give material significance to her theories, she seems to drag those theories through the mud, tainting them with either her ignorance or dismissal of the actual history that informed these events. It’s wrong, and it should be addressed. And, frankly, in light of this, I’ve grown to distrust the particulars that she represents everywhere else.

MadArchitect · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:00 am Post subject:

I'm not opposed to the suggestion that Arendt just didn't know, or wasn't competent to judge, the pertinent material here. The essay struck me as a strange inclusion in the volume, in large part because it represents Arendt ranging from the historical period and subject matter that made up the bulk of her work. But for precisely that reason, I'd advise against letting her missteps here cast any shadow on her other work. Contemporary non-fiction affords us plenty of examples of writers and researchers offering opinions outside their speciality, and as often as not, those opinions are awkwardly formed or incompletely considered, but we don't often take them as evidence of the author's incompetence in the field in which their reputation was made. It may be that Arendt's work on totalistic governments is flawed, but that's a judgment better reached by examining her writings on that subject. Which isn't to suggest that you've let "Reflections of Little Rock" decide the matter for you, but even the doubt itself seems, to me, misplaced until you've come across something in her other work that gives you the same misgivings.

irishrosem · Doctorate Joined: 19 Oct 2006 Posts: 536 Gender:

Well first, Mad, my above post wasn’t a suggestion; it was an assertion, if not a downright accusation.


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