"Why don't you go to school with us?"
One of my favorite characters of Part III of
School was ex-president Lyndon B. Johnson. As a Hispanic that moved to the
United States few years ago, I learn that Johnson declared September 15 the
official day of Hispanic Heritage celebration. Reading Part III taught me the
formation of this man and I could understand why he gave so much importance to
Hispanic population in the United States. Lyndon was raised in Texas and went
to a public school where the majority of students were Mexican or Chicanos. The
book tells how his first friendship, teachers, and childhood memories included
Hispanic characters. Later on, after receiving a higher education he went back
to work at the school where he studied and noticed that although year have
passed, nothing never changed. It is then when he realized that segregation and
inequality needed to stop.
After few years Lyndon B. Johnson became the
president who will make federal law to work in favor of minority group
students. He noticed that many states were not following the previous federal
law declared by Supreme Court on 1954. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
President Johnson forced those states and the South to include minority
students in their public schools. Like historian Joel Sprin says: “…suddenly
when money got involved in it, the federal government had the power then to
police local school systems. They could go in and say, Are you integrated? And
if you are not integrated, we’re going to cut off you funds.” This new funding
strategy by Lyndon is described in the book as “a carrot and a stick” which means
that the Civil Rights Act was the stick, the thread of losing federal funds and
the carrot was the federal funds.
After Lyndon B. Johnson efforts and contributions
to the public school system other events made possible education for all
children. A movement was emerging from the hearts of those students who were
tired of being treated inequal and wanted a quality education. Also, minority
groups professionals were asking for equality at work. Hence, this movement was
starred by leaders who fought for desegregation and education for all including
Chinese students, African-Americans, students with disabilities and Hispanic
and Woman who were also fighting for their rights. An example of the former is
Dorothy Raffle who only wanted to play basketball but encountered so many
obstacles being that she was raised in a society in which woman barely had the
right for education. Raffle join the movement advocating for woman rights and
now she can say: “I’m pleased with the fact that I had the opportunity to make
things easier for my daughter.”
All these events make me think about how
sometimes new generations, sometimes including myself, do not value the privileges
they, we, have today. That is why history is so important, to make sure that
all that our ancestors went through and fought for is worthy today. Yes, I believe
that new technologies, advances, and progress are necessary for the globe to keep
operating, but those three things can be dangerous if they are misused. My
final reflection on Part III of school is that everything was worthy, but at the
same time we need to keep it up in order to achieve progress as society. I like
the words pronounced by Thurgood Marshall, who used to be a Supreme Court Justice:
“For unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our
people will ever learn to live together.”
Comments
Post a Comment