ABSTRACT
A group of black parents, educators, and legislators, led by long-time activist Dr. Howard Fuller, disturbed the lazy days of late summer 1987 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by announcing their intention to seek legislation creating an independent and largely black school system. In addition, enforcement of such an "equal representation" rule would have provided early policy-level protection for the thousands of black teachers and principals who were dismissed by school systems in the 1960s and 70s when racial balance-oriented school desegregation plans were implemented. The Brown decision declared that separation of black children "solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone." The immediate and urgent need of the black urban poor is the attainment in real life terms and in settings of virtually total black-white school separation, at least some of the constitutional guarantees that Brown requires.
