Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality

The Kindle edition of Simple Justice is 799 pages, but do not be intimidated by its length. The author, Richard Kluger, devoted more than a decade of his life writing, researching and conducting interviews in compiling and completing this remarkable work.The subtitle of this literary masterpiece focuses on the landmark public school desegregation suit, which Oliver explains is actually a series of several desegregation lawsuits initially heard by the US Supreme Court in 1952. By order of the Court, the cases were re-argued in late 1953, but the Court's final decision was announced on May 17, 1954. Kluger explains the unanimous decision, as written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and why Justice Warren sought a unanimous ruling.Simple Justice is a history lesson in print. Its' author provides a detailed history of the state of public education for African-American children stretching nearly a century from post Civil War to 1954. Oliver introduces the reader to several of the most valuable African-American attorneys, including future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Other attorneys making significant contributions to the eventual 1954 decision included in this volume were: Robert Carter, Spottswood Robinson, William Hastie, James Gave it and Charles Houston. Kluger provides background detail of the Supreme Court justices who comprised America's highest court at the time Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, KS.This remarkable compilation holds significant personal importance for me. I was the editor of a thrice-weekly newspaper in Opelousas, LA, parish seat of St. Landry Parish, located in South-central Louisiana from April 1985-November 1987. Although this period took place some 31 years after the Brown decision, St. Landry Parish Schools was just getting around to desegregation it's high schools, a project that involved creating three schools from six of the 12 that existed as of 1986. The school board's site selection of the three consolidated and desegregated high schools triggered a massive revolt from the African-American population of the parish, including demonstrations/sit-ins at the school district office in Opelousas. I covered and wrote the articles that our newspaper published during these events.Finally, I am compelled to state that this work by Richard Kluger should be required reading in every college curriculum relating to public education and the African-American population. It is just that valuable!

Kluger’s book is a comprehensive compilation of the historical court case Brown V Board of Education and the Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregation. The author also covers the history of slavery in the United States and life after the Civil War for the black people. He describes the injustice, degradation and abuse to the black people.Kluger also covers the twenty years it took for states to fully respond to the Court’s directives to desegregate schools. The author also reviews, in great detail, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Kluger shows how the law has served to create and alter who we are as a society.The book is well written and meticulously researched. It is a lengthy book at 822 pages. It is a detailed history of the treatment of blacks in this country. The author reminds us that freedom without resources is simply a different form of slavery. Kluger introduces the reader to pivotal black attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall, Charles Houston and William Hastie. This is a must-read book. I am left with the thought that Kluger’s book presents America’s own version of a living holocaust.I read this as an e-book on my Kindle app for my iPad. The recent release of the book in digital form was 2011. It was originally published on December 12, 1975.

This book is far more comprehensive than I could have ever anticipated. I tend to be wary of history books that are written so closely to the period, or the event, that they're discussing, since typically enough time hasn't passed to truly gain a full scope for the precedence that the events being discussed set, and the consequences of those events need more time to sink in. And it's especially difficult if the author actually lived through to see those events unfold, since being in the middle of a situation can typically obscure a clear view of it, but that skepticism was gone when Richard Kluger opened his book by detailing the legal state of racial identity in America immediately after the abolition of slavery.The subtitle of the book is somewhat misleading, "The History of Brown V. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality," which lead me to believe that Simple Justice would primarily be about the actual court case itself, but instead, more accurately, this book is less about Brown v Board itself, but more about the full scope of the African American struggle to attain equal access to education, the ridicule, shame, and injustice they endured for simple right to an education, and the hundreds of uphill battles blacks in America faced, along with the prejudice the court rooms held against them by demerit of their skin, all of which culminated over one hundred years until they finally secured a resounding victory in the decision of Brown v Board.It's a truly inspiring book in which Kluger paints so many silhouettes, and finds so many heroes on his journey through this particular vein of history.

If you're looking to read just a select few of books abt the civil rights movement that will give you a more complete picture over what the three branches of government (the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court) did to first thwart and then support civil rights, this would be the book to read about the Supreme Court.But it's not only a great book about the evolution of American civil rights law from the 19th century to Brown vs. Board, but also a highly informative read about the key characters within the NAACP and the Supreme Court who were a part of this fight. On the right and wrong side of history.

beautiful book