Reflections on the Promise of Brown and Multicultural Education

Abstract

This article examines the dual meaning of “promise”—hope and vow—in relation to Brown I and II. It then proceeds to discuss how these two conceptions of promise are carried out in a desegregated junior high school. The article concludes with a discussion of how multicultural education can help meet the dual expectations of Brown as promise/vow and promise/hope

Desegregation is not and was never expected to be an easy task. Racial attitudes ingrained in our Nation's childhood and adolescence are not quickly thrown aside…. But just as the inconvenience of some cannot be allowed to stand in way of the rights of others, so public opposition, no matter how strident, cannot be permitted to divert this Court from enforcement of … constitutional principles.

–Thurgood Marshall