Abstract

Among Moses' Bridge-Builders

When the journal asked the author to write an essay on the fortieth anniversary of U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, he felt as though he was being called to the grandest project of his career. This is the case that like a stone monument, stands for just about all the racial struggles with which the U.S. still grapples. The symbolic significance of the case had definitely made the Brown family icons of the possible in the author's mind, Oliver Brown, now deceased, whose name became the reference for all subsequent generations of discussion, Leola Brown Montgomery, Oliver Brown's widow, Linda Brown Thompson, the little girl on whose behalf Oliver Brown sued, the middle daughter, Terry Brown Tyler, and Cheryl Brown Henderson, the youngest daughter and also an educator.