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I saw a lot of different policies implemented that were clearly intended to, in effect, follow the letter of Brown, but not the spirit of Brown—and in some cases not even the letter of Brown. When I was in school, in the mid-1970s, there was no official prom at the high school. Rather than having whites and blacks associating at the prom, you had school officials in Loreauville deciding that there would be no school- sanctioned prom. Blacks put together their own private prom, and whites put together their own private proms. That practice continued until the mid-1980s. Those are some of the social issues that Brown could never address because that relates to attitudes of people.

Photo credit: AP Photo credit: Photo VP: How is the East Baton Rouge Parish school desegregation case connected U.S. Deputy Marshals escort six- year-old from William e caught up with John Pierre on with Brown v. Board of Education? Frantz Elementary School in New a Sunday morning over a cup JP: The Supreme Court finally handed Orleans in . The of hot chocolate and beignets at down its decision in the Brown cases on first grader was the only black child W enrolled in the school, where parents the Coffee Call, a popular coffee shop in May 17, 1954. In Brown I, the Supreme of white students boycotted the Baton Rouge, . Pierre, associate Court held that racial segregation of public court-ordered integration law and took their children out of school. professor and associate vice-chancellor at schools violates the Southern University Law Center, worked on of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Brown II, the East Baton Rouge Parish Louisiana the court considered the manner in which desegregation suit settlement for seven years. relief was to be accorded, ordering schools The case, settled in August 2003, was filed to desegregate “with all deliberate speed” in 1956 in response to the United States and called upon the district courts to Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of supervise the implementation of its decree. Education (1954) decision. These district courts were instructed to take Pierre has earned both a master’s degree measures necessary for and consistent with in tax accounting from Tech and a JD both the law of Brown and the spirit of from the Southern Methodist University Brown. School of Law. After receiving his law Meanwhile, the Louisiana state Beyond Brown degree, Pierre served in the U.S. Army as legislature responded immediately to the judge staff advocate attorney. Brown decision by passing a raft of bills and Louisiana Lawyer Madeline Hebert: Professor Pierre, resolutions to condemn and obstruct the during the 1960s and 1970s, you were a ruling. With only three dissenting votes Discusses the East Baton student in the Louisiana public schools. in the house and one in the senate, the Tell us about your experience. legislature labeled Brown “an unwarranted Rouge Desegregation John Pierre: I was born on 10, and unprecedented abuse of power” and 1959—three years and 10 days after [the branded racial integration “intolerable, Suit and its Relation East Baton Rouge desegregation suit] impractical, and in the ultimate sense to Brown v. Board was filed. I grew up in a small farming unenforceable.” community called Loreauville in Iberia Three bills designed to circumvent of Education Parish in the heart of sugar cane country. Brown became law after minimal debate. And we went to a small, segregated school One restricted state support to all but by Vivica Pierre and Madeline Hebert when I was a child, from first through segregated public schools; another fourth grade. empowered local school boards to assign Vivica Pierre: Do you remember what pupils to schools on an individual basis; the it felt like attending black-only schools? third mandated segregated schools under the JP: Yes. I was obviously very aware of “inherent police power of the state” as a Brown, because I was living it in Iberia means of preserving “public health, morals, Parish. As I matriculated through high better education, peace and good order,” school and through college, I was living according to the 1954 Acts of the Legislature through the promise of Brown and was of the State of Louisiana. personally aware of the issues and the The East Baton Rouge (EBR) Parish problems associated with efforts by school integration case was filed in 1956 in Southerners to forestall the implementation response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the of Brown. Brown cases, only the third school integration

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case to be filed by the NAACP. The NAACP In 1970, the school board established After Parker stepped down, the case was had already filed two other public school a biracial committee to formulate a plan assigned to U.S. District Judge James Brady, integration suits in Louisiana—one against addressing the problems of student and a recent addition to the federal bench. and the other against St. faculty desegregation. The committee Although Brady had only been involved Helena Parish school boards. proposed a neighborhood zoning with the case for a short time, he indicated In 1960, the United States Federal desegregation plan that was unanimously a desire to work with the parties to devise District Court for the Eastern District of approved by the board and subsequently a solution to the desegregation problems Louisiana issued an order prohibiting the adopted by the district court. The plan in the parish. In an effort to ensure EBR School Board from continuing to provided for desegregation of faculty, staff, operate a racially segregated school system. transportation, extracurricular activities, Upon order of the court, the school board student body composition, and school submitted a freedom-of-choice plan that facilities. was adopted by the court in 1963. Also in the 1970 plan, student By the time desegregation finally assignment was based primarily on the became a widespread reality in Louisiana in neighborhood school concept supplemented 1969-1970, racial attitudes had become so by a majority-to-minority transfer polarized that the ideals of integration were provision. This plan for desegregation was smothered in chaos, conflict, and mutual later struck down as ineffective, and in hostilities. In response to Brown, many 1981 another plan devised by the court was white parents continued to resist implemented in an attempt to dismantle integration by moving from city to suburb the dual educational system root and branch where the population, and the public as required by the U.S. Constitution. schools, remained overwhelmingly white. During the next decade, dozens of And in the rural parishes, especially those orders were approved by the court to with large black populations, many white modify aspects of the 1981 plan, but the

parents took their children out of the public basic principles of the plan remained AP Photo credit: Photo schools altogether, placing them in hastily unchanged throughout the 1980s. In 1990, Judge is shown in his office in New created private schools. the school system began experiencing Orleans, January 1977. Nominated to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 1957, Wisdom became one of the serious overcrowding problems, and the most influential justices in school desegregation and school board commenced looking for a integration in Louisiana. He presided over the East Baton solution to the problems of overcrowding Rouge case until 1978. without distorting its primary objective of desegregation. In