Vol. 11 No. 7 (July 2001) pp. 357-359.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: A CIVIL RIGHTS MILESTONE AND ITS TROUBLED LEGACY by James T. Patterson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. 317 pp. Cloth $27.50. ISBN: 0-19-512716-1.

Reviewed by George I. Lovell, Department of Political Science, University of Washington.

James Patterson's book presents a compelling and well-constructed narrative of events associated with BROWN v. BOARD OF EDUCATION and the broader processes of desegregation and race relations in the United States over the past half-century. The book begins with a discussion of political and social conditions in the years before BROWN, carefully explains the BROWN decisions and their immediate aftermath, and traces the processes of desegregation through the federal civil rights statutes of the 1960s, the busing crises of the 1970s, and the controversial withdrawal of court and federal supervision over the past two decades. Patterson attempts to place Supreme Court decisions in the context of the broader political, organizational, economic, and social forces surrounding these turbulent events. Moreover, Patterson effectively supplements a conventional top-down account of the choices made by visible leaders (Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren, George Wallace, etc.) with bottom-up quotations from ordinary people.

Patterson's success relating complex events and ideas in a readable and short narrative, while handling controversies in a serious and fair minded way makes the book a useful introduction to these events. Patterson synthesizes a tremendous amount of information from secondary sources and presents it in a concise and compelling manner. In addition to explaining the many important events that are part of this broad story, Patterson's narrative includes sensible discussions of many related political processes and policy controversies. These include Supreme Court decision-making, interest group development and maintenance, state and local government processes, the development of public opinion and its effect on politics, and the difficulty of measuring educational achievement.

The effort to cover so much ground in a short space does, come at costs, however. One cost is that the book does not attempt to provide clear answers to some central questions about BROWN, race relations, and political processes. For example, Patterson does not take a clear stand on central questions about the impact of the Supreme Court on the events that he describes. Patterson at times recognizes that the power of the Court can be very limited. He concedes that the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 may have been a more important impetus for civil rights activism than the decision in BROWN (p. 87). In addition, he says elsewhere that the federal civil rights legislation of the 1960s "did more to change the legal status of blacks than had the decades of litigation that Thurgood Marshall and his fellow-attorneys had pursued" (p. 127). However, Patterson also suggests that the courts were important by carefully documenting how BROWN was an important inspiration for some civil rights activists (e.g., p. 121). Moreover, Patterson returns at each crucial stage of the story to a discussion of what was happening at the Supreme Court, leaving the impression that courts are central to the civil rights story.

Of course, Patterson would not be able to cover nearly as much ground if he had tried to construct convincing arguments for every important controversy raised by the events in the story. Patterson does a good job identifying important questions even though he does not try to answer all of them. The broad scope means, however, that the book will be most useful to readers with a general rather than specialized interest in these events.

The broad scope of the book does not mean that Patterson never takes sides. Some central themes do emerge as the book progresses. For example, Patterson is clearly sympathetic to the gradualist approach to desegregation adopted by the Warren Court in the late 1950s and 1960s. More generally, the book carries a message of cautious optimism about BROWN and desegregation. Patterson notes the persistent gaps in black and white educational opportunities and economic attainment, and the resulting skepticism about BROWN and the usefulness of integration. Patterson is especially effective in relating the disappointment expressed recently by early advocates of desegregation like Kenneth Clark and Harry Briggs, Jr. However, Patterson also tries to temper skeptical interpretations by repeatedly reminding readers about worse conditions before BROWN and by showing just how difficult even modest progress has been. It is also worth noting that Patterson's sympathy for integration and the Warren Court does not prevent him from providing a balanced account. He does have critical words for some of the choices made by liberal justices, and, he even finds some nice things to say about Richard Nixon's civil rights policies.

Another strength of the book is that Patterson makes an admirable effort to place court decisions into a broader political context involving both state and federal elected officials. Nevertheless, there are some features of the underlying political context that could be better explained, particularly in Patterson's discussions of presidential civil rights policies. For example, Patterson explains Eisenhower's unwillingness to back the Court on desegregation by noting that his position was "hardly unusual in 1954" and matched the attitudes of most white Northerners (p. 82). However, Patterson later claims that claims "it is scarcely imaginable, given the evolution of opinion by 1954, that [the Supreme Court] could have dared to uphold PLESSY" (p. 116). Patterson does provide charts and other useful information about changes in public opinion, and sometimes explains political calculations and capacities by making claims about "majority opinion" (e.g., p. 183). However, observations about majority opinion are not always helpful because even the "democratic" branches of the U. S. government are not particularly majoritarian. The dramatic changes in the party system, and the political entrepreneurship that structured those changes and shaped public opinion are at least as important as how majorities responded to poll questions at any point in time. In addition, Patterson's account of politics would have been more satisfying if he had directly engaged Derrick Bell's important argument that the interests of whites rather than blacks shaped the contours of the desegregation.

My only disagreement with Patterson's claims about the original decision in BROWN is his tendency to characterize it as a decision aimed only at de jure segregation and only at the South (e.g., p. xx, p. 65). While there is certainly some language in Warren's opinion to support this narrow reading, the opinion also contains expansive language linking education to citizenship and stating that states must provide education to all on equal terms. This issue is important because Patterson's narrower reading leads him to see Warren's claims about the harms of racial segregation, and the social science evidence that Warren cited to support that claim, as more central to Warren's argument than they would be on the more expansive reading.

The narrow reading of BROWN also affects Patterson's characterization of the Burger Court's decisions of the 1970s. Patterson emphasizes the surprising support the Court gave to busing in Denver and Charlotte, rather than the substantial limits that the Court placed on the potential constitutional principle of educational equality in other cases. Patterson's reading makes it seem as though Nixon's effort to pack the Court to reverse Warren Court activism fizzled. However, if one reads the original BROWN decision as an attempt to begin creating a broader constitutional principle of educational opportunity, then the significance of the conservative pressures on the Court in the 1970s becomes clearer. The most important example is RODRIGUEZ, the 1973 San Antonio case in which the Burger Court rejected a challenge to local (and thus unequal) funding of education, and it limited the reach of BROWN to the harms created by de jure racial segregation. Although a decision in the opposite direction in RODRIGUEZ seems almost unfathomable today, the difference in 1973 was just one vote from one of the Nixon justices. If the Court had adopted the lower court's more expansive interpretation of BROWN, the Court may have banned states from using local funding systems that create inequalities along class lines, a major cause of continuing inequalities in educational opportunities. The result in RODRIGUEZ might have been more revolutionary than BROWN. Patterson does provide information about RODRIGUEZ. However, if he recognized broader aspirations in the original BROWN opinion, he could have made it clear that the Burger Court was not simply following what BROWN had meant in 1954, but making a tremendously important choice about what BROWN could mean in the future.

Other readers may find other points where they can quibble with Patterson's emphasis or analysis of these controversial events. Some readers will want to supplement Patterson's account with the many other books that tell smaller parts of this story in more detail. Nevertheless, anyone who wants a short introductory overview to this entire chain of events can start with Patterson's book. Patterson has absorbed an enormous scholarly literature, and he effectively synthesizes conflicting sources in a nuanced and absorbing account.

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Copyright 2001 by the author, George I. Lovell.