In The First Step: How One Girl Put
Segregation on Trial, by Susan E. Goodman, illustrated by E. B. Lewis,
readers learn about a very long journey that began with one step. More than one
hundred years before the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the U.S.
Supreme Court making school segregation unconstitutional, a family in Boston
made their own case for “separate is never equal” in education. In April 1847, four-year-old Sarah Roberts began attending the Otis School near her home.
Suddenly one day she was escorted from school by a policeman entrusted with
enforcing Boston’s rule that African American children must attend their own
school. Such schools were inadequately supplied and very far from home. Sarah’s parents
stepped forward to fight this injustice, joining with lawyers Robert Morris and
Charles Sumner in a case before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. They lost the
case but in the process mobilized the sentiments of many people, both black and
white; in 1855, Boston officially integrated its schools. In 1950, young Linda
Brown’s family in Topeka, Kansas, joined with two hundred other families in
several states to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In May 1954, the
court, basically in agreement with Charles Sumner’s argument a century earlier,
declared that separate schools can never be equal, outlawing school segregation
across the nation. Author Goodman includes an integration timeline, more
information about the story’s participants, and her own notes about the
importance of seeking historical accuracy in good nonfiction. The courage shown
by Sarah Roberts and those who supported her, plus those in later years who persisted in
seeking equality, will be evident to young readers. Ages 7-10.
Separate Is Never
Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation, by Duncan Tonatiuh,
tells the story of another brave step in the fight for educational opportunity,
one that took place on the other side of the country. Mendez, an American
citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, was denied access to a school
populated by white children. The Hispanic community was joined by civil rights
groups supporting a lawsuit that resulted in the 1947 California ruling against
segregation in public schools. Ages 9 up.
