Seventy years after Brown, integration may feel like a battle that’s already been won. But the backstory of Meredith v. Fair reminds us that we are still living in Brown’s shadow. Indeed, to understand the fierce debates over critical race theory in twenty-first century classrooms, school boards, and legislatures, we need to revisit the moment of its gestation: not Brown per se, but the struggle to make the ideals of Brown a reality in American education. We need to revisit Meredith v. Fair.
As it is known today, critical race theory is a set of interconnected convictions about the extent to which racism is woven into every last nook and cranny of culture (including the liberal redoubts which fancied themselves above the fray), but it originated with the difficult recognition that the biggest wins of the civil rights era (like Brown) could not even secure integration, let alone equity. Revisiting Meredith v. Fair, we get the inside story of how critical race theory was developed in the midst of the heartbreak that followed Brown.
A Question of Compliance
To appreciate the competing legacies of Brown v. Board of Education, consider the contrasting conclusions drawn from Meredith v. Fair by two of James Meredith’s lawyers, Constance Baker Motley and Derrick Bell. Motley remembered the Meredith case as a validation of Brown and the definitive demise of Jim Crow. Bell remembers it as a testament to the adaptability of antiblack racism. If Motley was attuned to the open highway, Bell was attuned to the thickets. Where Motley saw a victory for the principles of Brown, Bell saw the appropriation of Brown into the logic of white supremacy. Where Motley saw the death of segregation, Bell saw the birth of a new racialized regime.
In the 1960s, Bell and Motley worked together at the Legal Defense Fund representing Meredith and hundreds of other plaintiffs in desegregation cases. Although Motley left the LDF in 1964 and Bell in 1968, their respect for each other never waned. They remained friends to the end, sharing personal milestones, professional news, and recommendations of good students. Although they drew different lessons from Meredith, those conclusions were neither incompatible nor adversarial. Motley was right that Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi was a validation of Brown. But Bell was also right. Meredith may have won the battle to integrate Ole Miss, but behind the arguments made by the university and its lawyers lurked a strategy that would one day push Brown toward irrelevance.