O ctober 19, 2011
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tices suffered by blacks, including slavery, segrega
tion, and patterns o f murderous violence are not
sufficient to gain real relief from any branch o f
government. America never...(passed) an anti-lynch
ing law despite literally thousands o f blacks mur
dered over several decades.
“Relief from racial discrimination, when it comes,
requires that (National) policy makers perceive the
racial relief will provide a clear benefit for the nation.
Even then, the relief is more symbolic than real and is
not enforced when the nation's interests have been
served
“The Brown decision, like the Emancipation Proc
lamation a century earlier, did launch major (Black)
self-help efforts that made serious inroads into the
racial status quo. Is it not precisely because o f their
unstinting faith in this country's ideals that black
people deserve better than an expression o f benign
paternalism, no matter how well intended? Symbolism
has served as sad substitute for the needed empathy
of action called for when a history o f racial subordi
nation is to be undone. ”
Ron Herndon is a long-time advocate fo r educa
tional opportunities fo r African-American chil
dren. He has served as director o f Head Start in
Portland since 1975.
Derrick Bell, a civil rights scholar who became
Harvard’s first black tenured law school professor,
died Oct. 5. In last week’s issue, I wrote about
Bell’s advocacy to end Portland Public School’s
racist policy of busing only black children to accom
plish its warped notions of school integration.
Another little known Portland community con
nection with Bell is the fictional character he used
in many essays and books about race relations
known as professor Geneva Crenshaw. Her first
name and much of her persona were taken from
Portland s own Geneva Knauls. While dean of the
University of Oregon Law School, Bell drove to
Portland to get Geneva to cut his hair at her barber
shop. He was impressed with her elegance, intellect
and common sense. Geneva and her husband Paul,
remain proud entrepreneurial fixtures in Portland’s
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lyn College, Samuel Konefsky Memorial Lecture,
Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education:
“In petitioners' briefs and more particularly in the
amicus briefs (Friend o f the Court) filed by the United
States Justice Department, the ‘separate but equal’
precedent o f Piessy was challenged as not only unjust
to blacks, but also bad fo r the country's image, a
barrier to development in the South, and harmful to its
foreign policy. To make the latter point, the
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day-to-day conduct o f its foreign relations; and it
jeopardizes the effective maintenance o f our moral
leadership o f the free and democratic nations o f the
world. ’
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“The Brown decision simply replicated a familiar
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