Brown v. Board of Education and…Communism?
One of the things I love about history is learning about different perspectives of a certain event. It is especially interesting when you are taught something about a subject, and then a couple years later you hear a different outlook that completely changes what you believed. This occurred to me when learning about the historic Brown v. Board of Education decision. In school, we are always taught that the Brown decision was one the greatest Supreme Court decisions in history, and that it demonstrated a heroic story of the triumph of a progressive Court.
However, things change when you situate the decision with other global events of the time period. In high school, I read an article saying that the Brown v. Board of Education decision was actually a response to the Cold War. It took me a few moments to grasp this concept. How could a legal decision that ended racial segregation in schools be related to the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union? It always seemed like the Civil Rights Movement and Cold War era were separate parts of history and completely unrelated. This is probably because of the way both events are taught in school. Most history textbooks teach the Civil Rights era and Cold War era in separate chapters, leaving us to assume there wasn’t a connection.
But the problem with racial discrimination in the United States was that it raised doubts about America’s commitment to democracy. For those outside the United States, it was hard to see America as the leader of the free world. But by removing flaws from its current system, the US was able to show that democracy facilitated the progress of African Americans. The story of race in America became a story of the supremacy of democracy over Communism. Using this hypothesis, I decided to write a research paper for the final project of my 11th grade history class. The evidence I found was even more striking.
An amicus brief from the Brown decision stated that racial discrimination “furnishes grist for Communist propaganda mills” and raised “doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith.” I couldn’t believe that documentation from the actual decision directly mentioned the ideological conflict between the United States and Communist nations.
Additionally, the United States constructed a counter narrative by advertising images of racial integration and advancements. It was noted that the change from chattel slavery to school integration was the result of a successful democracy, something that a dictatorship could never achieve.
There were plenty more primary sources that I analyzed when writing the paper. Communist propaganda posters, statements from politicians, and media reactions after the decision all showed a relationship between civil rights and Cold War tensions. By the conclusion of my research I was more so confused about the way I was taught about the Brown decision. I had always thought that the decision was meant to solely address domestic racism. But I guess people prefer to think of it as a strong moment in American history rather than a strategic move to protect the image of American democracy. Who knows.
