Slow Progress, 50 Years After Brown

School desegregation protests raged in nearby Prince George's County well into the 1970s. Some Virginia schools closed their doors rather than submit to desegregation. But the most effective anti-integration tactic by far was flight, as in "pack up and leave the area." School districts in the nation's capital, Prince George's and elsewhere rapidly became overwhelmingly African American as white parents fled with their children in tow.

So here we are 50 years after Brown's promise of racially integrated education and equal educational opportunities. Many children -- African American and white -- are still attending virtually one-race schools. Segregation has found its way back -- if, indeed, it ever left some schools.

To be sure, today's racial separation is not sanctioned by law. But in terms of racial isolation, the effect is much the same, and with the same consequences. As in the pre-Brown era, we are still trying to bring up to speed predominantly black schools -- often located in poverty-stricken communities -- by spending money on compensatory programs and other catch-up improvements to increase educational opportunities for minority students.

Does Brown, despite those failings, still have meaning? In my view, yes. Brown cut the legal legs out from under racial segregation and in doing so fundamentally changed the status of African Americans. That alone earns Brown a place of honor among other American historic documents of rights and freedom.

But Brown was more than a court decree. Implicit in that ruling was a promise of justice that Americans of good will -- black and white -- later sought to fulfill in places such as Montgomery, Selma and Jackson. Brown helped spawn the movement for civil rights -- a struggle that was legal, nonviolent and rooted in morality. The spirit of Brown helped energize the fight for equality in the workplace, the voting booth, in neighborhoods, parks, movie theaters and other places of public accommodation.

True, white flight helped ensure that children of different races would not meet, compete, study, engage in discussions and exchange views in grade and high schools, as the Brown decision envisioned. But because of Brown's long reach into other aspects of American life, children separated by the actions of resisting adults will meet someday.

If they don't encounter each other on the swing set or in biology lab, they will eventually meet in the college classroom or in the lecture hall. They will come face to face in the newsroom, and locker room, and the boardroom. They will meet in the computer lab, and on the ball field and drill field, and in Congress, state legislatures, local government and wherever our most basic public responsibilities are performed.

The spirit of Brown dictates that one day in America, we will meet.

The challenge to African Americans today is the same as it was on May 17, 1954, when the court spoke: to be prepared to achieve success on an equal footing in any endeavor -- be it in the arts, science, business, professions, sports -- any and every thing.

Looking back over the past 200 years, it's fair to say this has been one helluva long march. The Brown decision referred to a time when the education of African Americans was almost nonexistent and when "education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states." The journey from those dark days to the present, however imperfect, has been long, hard and at times dispiriting. But the march must continue until Brown's promise -- the opportunity to succeed in life -- is made available to all on equal terms; until equal opportunity is a reality in the life of every American, regardless of race, color, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

I no longer expect to live to see that day. But I'll go to my grave believing that it will come, simply because it must. A divided America cannot survive in this new world.

kingc@washpost.com