All Deliberate Speed

April 1, 2004
Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional, Harvard law professor Ogletree takes a confrontational look at the effects of the landmark decision on his own life as an African-American student and scholar and concludes that the Brown ruling ultimately failed to deliver on its promise of equality for all. By insisting that schools desegregate with "all deliberate speed," Ogletree argues that the court essentially told Southern school districts to "ignore the urgency on which the Brown lawyers insisted" and paved the way for decades of resistance to integration. He offers well-documented personal and historical examples to back up his arguments: the lack of quality schools and facilities available to minorities in his hometown of Merced, Calif. (he was two years old when the Brown decision was issued); his own experiences with affirmative action and the increasing legal challenges that have threatened it; and the profound impact of "white suburbanization" on efforts to desegregate urban areas. Ogletree, a protege of Thurgood Marshall, who served as lead counsel to Anita Hill in the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, also provides some interesting-albeit sketchy-details on his initial reluctance to represent Hill and his own analyses of Thomas's pre- and post-confirmation judicial opinions. Although the book occasionally bogs down in legal lingo, it offers readers an honest if fractured account of one man's firsthand experiences with one of the most significant court decisions of the 20th century and brings new insights into America's continuing struggle with race and integration. 7-city author tour. Agent, Ike Williams.