May 17th was the 70 th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. Brown v. Board, as it is generally known, reversed the “separate but equal“ doctrine that the Supreme Court previously upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). It was a crucial victory for the civil rights movement because it held that racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, civil rights advocates faced fierce challenges in dismantling the segregation in public schools. Famously, President Eisenhower had to send the National Guard to Arkansas, and President Kennedy had to do the same in Alabama and Mississippi, because opponents of segregation threatened the lives of teachers and school children who tried to exercise the very basic rights that the Supreme Court had recognized. Civil rights advocates worked hard right here in Manhasset too to fight for the desegregation of our elementary schools. Indeed, January was the 60th anniversary of another important, but far less widely known court case – Blocker v. Board of Education of Manhasset. In this case, several African Americans who lived in the Manhasset school district sued the Manhasset Board of Education, arguing that they were being discriminated against and racially segregated in the public schools, and the federal district court ordered that Manhasset desegregate its elementary schools. On this anniversary of Brown v. Board, we should recognize their strength and courage and the contribution they made to making our community more fair and inclusive.

In 1962, Manhasset had one high school, one middle school, and three elementary schools: Plandome Road School, Munsey Park School, and the Valley School. Children were required to attend the school in their designated attendance area, and transfer to another school was not permitted. From the early 1920s to the early 1960s, the African American population in the Valley area increased from 7% to 90% and, as of 1962, of the total of 166 children attending the Valley School all but 10 were African Americans. The 10 white children attending the Valley School represented only 0.8% percent of the total white elementary school population of the District. Thus, 99.2% of the white children of the District attended two all-white schools, while 100% of the African American children attended a separate school. The schools in many ways reflected the problems with the separate but equal doctrine that Brown v. Board dismantled. That case demonstrated that separate but equal is an impossibility. Equality could not be achieved through this doctrine in large part because schools with almost all white populations generally were located in more affluent locations and therefore had more financial resources for their students. This was true in New York just as it was true across the country. A New York State study of various school districts showed that there were large disparities between the education systems in high income areas compared to low income areas, and this was evident in Manhasset. The Valley School was situated in a less affluent area of Manhasset and had correspondingly fewer resources. Data showed that this negatively impacted the students. Children who attended the Valley school had lower scores on achievement tests taken by all 4th, 5th, and 6th graders compared to the scores of the children in the other two schools. This disparity was presented in the court case as clear evidence of the lack of equality in educational opportunity. Those against integration of the schools argued that the African American residents chose to live in the Valley segregated from others. The court rightly rejected this argument, by explaining that many of the families living in the area assigned to the Valley School could not afford to move to the areas assigned to the other two schools.

On January 24, 1964, the United States District Court for the Eastern District New York declared that the fundamental liberties protected by the 14th amendment were being violated in the Manhasset School district, and that the Manhasset Schools would have to be desegregated. Accordingly, Manhasset developed a plan to transfer the students of the Valley School to either the Plandome Road School or the Munsey Park School, and the Valley School was closed at the end of the 1963-1964 School Year. We should be inspired by these students and families and the many teachers who supported them, who insisted that our schools and our community support fair and equal educational opportunity regardless of race or socioeconomic background, and we can honor their legacy by committing ourselves to learning from one another regardless of our varying backgrounds and viewpoints.