Instead of learning from the past to solve today s problems, these politicians perpetuate the past by whitewashing it. This disingenuousness does more than distort commemoration; it s crippling our future.
As we approach the 70th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing segregation in public schools, I remain haunted, and yet hopeful, by the words the late Oliver W. Hill, one of the lawyers who helped bring the case to our nation’s highest court, shared with me one afternoon at his North Side home.
Five years into the renovation of a 143-year-old brick house on East Clay Street in Jackson Ward, James Vigeant’s work halted.
To his surprise and amazement, he found an unexpected treasure 144 moldy boxes filled with the decaying legal papers of one of Richmond’s legal giants, Roland J. “Duke” Ealey.