Chapter 2
A Tale of Two Movements: The Power and Consequences of Misremembering Brown

Abstract

If, as James Anderson stated, a nation committed to democracy and equality has every reason to be ashamed on Brown v. Board of Education 's 50th anniversary, why the commemoration and celebration (this volume, pp. 14-35)? An answer to that question is the mission of this chapter. By revising Anderson's challenge to examine the complex role of Brown in the nation's memory and history, the chapter investigates how the decision and the broader black freedom struggle are memorialized, why the story is told in a particular way, and the consequences of that portrayal in understanding the nature of American democracy and equality. An examination of the historiography of the movement and its judicial embodiment, Brown offers more than a nuanced understanding of the past; the way we write and understand history often tells us what we want to believe about ourselves in the present. In other words, our interpretations of history expose our conceptions of reality that, in turn, color the way in which we make sense of the world around us. Examining the particular tales of the black freedom struggle and Brown is useful in a volume dedicated to the question of what needs to happen before the close of another 50 years. In the spirit of the Akan word, Sankofa , "We must go back and reclaim our past so that we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today" ("About Sankofa," n.d.).To accomplish this task, the first section of the chapter examines two of the historiographical tales of Brown and the black freedom struggle in the scholarly literature. The conventional narrative and the revisionist narrative tell very different stories of the origins and goals of the movement, the major players in social reform, and the measures

Twelfth Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research: So That Any Child May Succeed: Indigenous Pathways Toward Justice and the Promise of Brown

“…It is a historical narrative, for a critical understanding of history is the necessary precondition for positive social change (cf. Williamson, 2006, p. 45).…”