ABSTRACT
The year 2004 marked two important legal anniversaries for African American children. It was the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and the 25th anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board (1979). Brown v. Board of Education opened all public schools to African American children. The Ann Arbor decision attempted to improve the ability of AAE-speaking students to learn to read once they had access to excellent schools. Twenty-five years after the Brown decision, the Ann Arbor decision was needed to remedy reading failure, and 25 years later, we continue to be concerned about low academic achievement overall and the central place of low reading performances within that problem.
