Thalya Reyes is an Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy master’s candidate for public policy and city and regional planning. Her column, “Concrete Jungle Gym,” runs on alternate Wednesdays.
The 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson found Louisiana’s “separate but equal” law of authorized segregation constitutional, building on white supremacy and the flawed notion of black inferiority. Nearly 60 years of Jim Crow laws along with deliberate pushback and positive gains made by people of color in the South culminated in the 1954 landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, which overturned Plessy stating separate schools are “inherently unequal.” After ordering the lower federal courts to require desegregation efforts to be carried out swiftly, school districts began to integrate black students into predominantly white schools through school busing.
