One Nation…Indivisible

Editorial cartoon

By: Herb Block

Date: 1977

Source: From Herblock on all Fronts.

About the Artist: Herb Block (1909–2001) was a political and editorial cartoonist whose work was published in theWashington Postfor more than fifty years. He viewed editorial cartooning as an effective medium for the expression of political opinions and the conveyance of important information to the public in a concise and often rather humorous way.

INTRODUCTION

The featured cartoon lampoons the notion that there is equality in funding and support for education regardless of the location of racial make-up of the student body. Specifically, it referred to the initial budget created by Jimmy Carter, shortly after he was elected President of the United States. In that document, submitted by President Carter to Congress, he attempted to dramatically increase school funding for children who lived in districts that were primarily below the poverty level. He also tried to increase availability of non-loan funding to college students, and to decrease available monies for districts that were significantly wealthier than the national norm. According to Mr. Block, this cartoon was a gentle (or not so very gentle) reminder that there were considerable differences in the funding, location, and programs available between sprawling suburban schools and their urban or inner-city counterparts.

After the conclusion of the Civil War (1861–1865), with the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of the practice of slavery in the United States, there was enormous racial tension, and considerable racial bias, throughout the country. There was little interaction between African Americans and Caucasians and virtually no social interaction between the races in most areas of the country. There was no integration of the races for public education, public transportation, or attendance of church or religious services. In many ways, this was an informal series of social conventions, not made law until the case of Plessy v. Fergusonin 1896. In 1890, Louisiana passed a "separate but equal" law in which "whites" and "coloreds" were not permitted to ride in the same railway car, unless there was only one car attached to the train—in which case, a physical barrier must be erected in order to separate the races. Homer Plessy, a man who was one-eighth black (also called by the colloquial term "octoroon"), entered a train car reserved for whites only and sat down. He was told to move to the "colored" car and refused to vacate his seat. He was summarily ejected from the train (presumably at the next stop). He was found guilty of refusal to sit in the place reserved for members of his race. The legal precedent set by this judicial decision was to be felt all across the nation, as it formalized the "separate but equal" doctrine: It was not necessary for the races ever to intermingle so long as separate but equal facilities could be created but maintained. The theory of "separate but equal" was rapidly institutionalized and extended to nearly every aspect of life in America. There were racial divisions for the use of physicians, hospitals, schools, churches, water fountains, bathrooms, hotels, and housing areas. The proverbial elephant in the living room, however, was that while the facilities created were definitely separate, they were virtually never equal.

PRIMARY SOURCE

ONE NATION…INDIVISIBLE

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Although there had been de facto segregation before the legal decision inPlessy v. Ferguson, it was codified and sanctioned by the courts at that point. In theory, all public facilities, whether they were medical, educational, or social, were supposed to be created so as to be equal, or at least equivalent, for both races. From a legal perspective, anyone who was not 100 percent Caucasian was considered black, whether they were Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, multi-racial, or African American—all were equal under the law.

In fact, the differences in facilities for each race were widely reported to be significant, with perhaps one of the greatest disparities occurring in the area of education. In 1864, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and thereby guaranteed 'equal protection under the law' to all citizens, regardless of race. In 1896,Plessy v. Fergusonextended that paradigm to incorporate the notion of 'separate but equal', with the emphasis onseparate. Although numerous attempts were made to nullify the outcome ofPlessyby individuals and civil rights groups, including the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), none prevailed untilBrown v. Board of Educationwas decided on appeal in 1955.

Initially, the legal challenges, spearheaded by the NAACP, focused on mandating that the separated schools be made truly equal and attempted to significantly raise the standards for the black schools. Not only was this met with, at best, minimal success, the same battle had to be fought nearly incessantly, as it was effective only for one district at a time and had no impact on the larger issue of differential treatment of American citizens based solely on race. At the start of the 1950s, the NAACP made a decision to step the issue of inequalities in education up to a national level and consolidated a group of cases in several different states under the rubric ofBrown v. Board of Education.

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at the time of the ruling, Judge Earl Warren wrote the decision, which stated, in part,

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system. We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Desegregation of the public school system in America proceeded neither naturally nor swiftly. Desegregation plans were developed and adopted by school districts, and districts were not infrequently geographically re-drawn in order to avoid integration. In the early 1960s, America entered an era of mandatory busing of schoolchildren in order to racially balance schools in many areas. The Civil Rights movement in America became more and more visible after theBrowndecision, as black Americans began to actively engage in the process of ensuring that hardwon rights were enforced. Despite peaceful, and sometimes not so peaceful, efforts for nearly two decades after theBrowndecision, many schools remained extremely segregated, particularly in the Southern states. In an effort to enforce the civil rights guaranteed to African Americans by the Constitution and a series of legal decisions, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was made law by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. The legislation was initially proposed by John F. Kennedy, who firmly believed that all citizens should be treated equally, and that this treatment should be legislatively enforced, particularly as concerned the right and ability for all American people to freely vote for the political candidates of their own choosing, to have equal access to jobs and pay, to be able to socialize freely at all public facilities, to be entitled to the same legal protections and benefits, and to have equal access to quality education within the local public school system.

While the legislation was well-intended and resulted in many efforts at desegregation, there remain racial inequalities, based primarily upon the results of institutionalized racism. There remains considerable disparity between black and white citizens in terms of socioeconomic status; many places of employment do not afford equal pay for positions of equal status. This is not confined to racial disparities—the same holds true for females and elders in the American workforce, as well as those citizens who are not deemed to be of white status, particularly those of Hispanic, Latino, or Native American descent, or those for whom English is not a first language.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Anderson, James, ed., and Dara N. Byrne.The Unfinished Agenda of Brown v. Board of Education. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2004.

Armor, David J.Forced Justice: School Desegregation and the Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Bell, Derrick.Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Frankenberg, Erika, and Chungmei Lee.Race in American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts. Cambridge, Mass.: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University, August 2002.

Kluger, Richard.Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

Tushnet, Mark V.The NAACP's Legal Strategy against Segregated Education, 1925–1950. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1987.

Periodicals

Holmes, Steven A. "Administration Cuts Affirmative Action While Defending It."New York Times(March 16, 1998): A17.

Reynolds, William B. "Affirmative Action and its Negative Repercussions."The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science523 (September 1992): 38, 49.

Tuch, Stephen A., and Michael Hughes. "Whites' Racial Policy Attitudes."Social Science Quarterly. 77(4) (1996):723–745.

Verhovek, Sam H. "In Polls, Americans Reject Means but Not Ends of Racial Diversity."New York Times(December 14, 1997): 1, 32.

Web sites

Brown v. Board of Education. "Summary and Excerpt of Ruling." <http://www.pbs.org/jefferson/enlight/brown. htm#summary> (accessed May 15, 2006).

Herblock's History. "One nation, indivisible." February 22, 1977 <http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/ one.html> (accessed May 15, 2006).