{"id":6733,"date":"2018-04-03T07:16:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T12:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/?p=6733"},"modified":"2018-03-29T08:59:51","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T13:59:51","slug":"april-8-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/faithlens\/april-8-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"April 8, 2018–Stubborn Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drew Tucker, Columbus, OH<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Warm-up Question<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s one goal that\u2019s so important to you that you won\u2019t give up until you have it? Why is it so important?<\/p>\n

Stubborn Hope
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We lost a hero recently. Linda Brown, whose name featured prominently in the 1964 Supreme Court Case Brown vs. Board of Education<\/em>, died on March 25, 2018. In 1950, this 76-year-old Civil Rights champion attempted to enroll in an all-white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. Young Linda\u2019s father, Rev. Oliver Brown, attempted to register her for classes. When she was denied access, Rev. Brown sued the school on Linda\u2019s behalf. The Supreme Court finally ruled in Linda\u2019s favor in 1954, ensuring equal access to education for all people. She and her father Oliver lived to see the day, in 1956, when all schools in Topeka were officially integrated. Yet, as Linda lived much of her life in Kansas, she noticed that the end of official segregation policies didn\u2019t eradicate the actual segregation of schools. In 1979, she reopened the case, claiming that Topeka schools weren\u2019t, in fact, integrated, despite the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling. Finally, in 1993, the court ruled in her favor, forcing new schools to be built and new policies to be enacted to ensure that integration was a lived reality for students in her hometown.<\/p>\n

Linda\u2019s struggle for the experience of true equality is not over. The process for integrating schools has been long and drawn out. Even as recently as 2016, some schools still utilized loopholes and local policies to enforce de facto <\/em>segregation<\/a> by race. While Linda didn\u2019t live to see the absolute end of segregation, she did live to see the end of it within her world of Topeka, Kansas. She fought her entire life, as a child and as an adult, to ensure that children of color and white children would have the same access to education and the opportunity to learn together, eat together, play together, live life together. She would not give up until that goal was accomplished.<\/p>\n

More about Linda Brown<\/a><\/p>\n

A short video on her importance in the Civil Rights Movement<\/a><\/p>\n

Discussion Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n