Forum Network

Mr. Julian Bond and Dr. R. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr., as they participate in an intimate conversation during the first MLK Leadership Breakfast. This a rare opportunity to hear these thought leaders in civil rights and diversity management.

A discussion on the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision with a VIP panel that includes Harvard's Charles Ogletree, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Caroline Hoxby, and Lani Guinier, as well as Georgetown professor Sheryll Cashin and Abigail Thernstrom of the Manhattan Institute.

This special forum includes Ernest Green, the first student of color to graduate from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and one of nine students of color, known as the Little Rock Nine, who broke the color barrier at that school in September 1957, following the Supreme Court ruling. May 17, 1954 marks the US Supreme Court ruling stating that racial segregation in the public schools is unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

A distinguished panel discusses the impact of Brown vs. the Board of Education, 50 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision. Moderated by Carmen Fields, director of media relations, KeySpan Energy New England, the panel includes Margaret A. Burnham, associate professor of law at Northeastern University School of Law; Nancy Gertner, US district court judge for the District of Massachusetts; Jonathan Kozol, author and activist; Charles Ogletree Jr., Jesse Climenko professor of law at Harvard Law School; Robert V. Ward Jr., dean of the Southern New England School of Law; and Dianne Wilkerson, state senator of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was particularly fitting that the Museum commemorate the landmark Brown decision given the historic significance of its site, the Abiel Smith School, which was a the center of the first school desegregation case filed in the United States, Roberts v. the City of Boston (1850). The Abiel Smith School, located at 46 Joy Street on Beacon Hill, Boston and opened in 1835, was the first public school in the country to be erected specifically as a segregated school for African American primary and secondary school-aged children. Prompted by a gift from white philanthropist Abiel Smith, the City of Boston opened the Smith School on Beacon Hill. However, the building lacked the adequate space and equipment for a quality education. Benjamin Franklin Roberts, a black printer, sued the city after his 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, had been denied admission to the primary school closest to her home in the West End and was told to go to the Smith School, more than a mile away. In 1850, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decided against Roberts stating that the Boston School Committee had fulfilled its obligation to provide a "separate but equal" educational program. Forty-six years later, the US Supreme Court relied principally upon this rationale in establishing the "separate but equal doctrine", announced in Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896). This doctrine was unanimously reversed 58 years later by the US Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Morris Dees Jr. discusses the founding of the Southern Poverty Law Center and talks about his experience with this group. **Morris Dees Jr.** is famous for his crusade against white supremacist hate groups, and known for his landmark cases, which forced groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Neo-Nazis to disband. Dees' work has been fictionalized in a 1991 movie called *Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story*, as well as in numerous books.

On the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, this panel discussion considers the topic "18,190 Days of (de)Segregation: How Far Have We Come?" with Angelo Ancheta, Mitchell Chang, Vanessa Siddle Walker, and Charles Willie.

Ernest C. Withers talks about his photojournalism career, which took him on travels with Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, and other figures in the civil rights movement. As a freelance journalist for African American newspapers, he captured on film the momentous events of the 1950s and 60s as they unfolded. Withers shares his experiences and images of events that altered the course of American history in a memorable Martin Luther King Jr. Day presentation.

This discussion centers around the screening of a film by Robert Drew, founder of cinema verite. The time was June 1963, when two black students tried to gain admission to the University of Alabama. The film, entitled *Crisis*, looks at the White House's handling of the event and simultaneously traces the actions of Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. The film was controversial when first released. Although now recognized as a major piece of work, at the time, *The New York Times* editorialized against it claiming, "Under the circumstances in which this film was taken, the use of cameras could only denigrate the Office of the President. To eavesdrop on executive decisions of serious government matters while they are in progress is highly inappropriate. The White House isn't Macy's window." Today, because of this film, we have a remarkable historical record of what led to the integration of the University of Alabama.

Congressman John Lewis, who at 23, spoke at the 1963 March on Washington as chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, leads a discussion on the planning, implementation, and effect the first March on Washington had on the country.

Political activist Angela Davis talks about abolitionism and human rights in the United States.