Books on Brown

Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution, edited by Robert Cottrol et al., University Press of Kansas, $15.95.

An overview by three law professors of the Brown case, its precedents, and the desegregation battles that followed.

All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education, by Charles Ogletree, W.W. Norton, $25.95.

Born almost two years before the Brown decision, Ogletree examines how the ruling - and its slow implementation - affected him and other black Americans. A Harvard law professor and Anita Hill's lead counsel during the Clarence Thomas hearing, Ogletree also analyzes how the Brown ruling relates to affirmative action.

The Unfinished Agenda of Brown v. Board of Education, by Black Issues in Higher Education, John Wiley & Sons, $24.95.

A collection of essays on segregation and educational equality by, among others, NPR correspondent Juan Williams, educator Mary Hatwood Futrell, and civil rights activist Derrick Bell.

Linda Brown, You Are Not Alone: The Brown v. Board of Education Decision, edited by Joyce Carol Thomas, illustrated by Curtis James, Jump Sun, $15.99.

Personal reflections, stories, and poems about the Supreme Court decision. All the contributors, young-adult writers, were children in 1954, and they reflect on the era from different sides of the racial barrier. (Ages 9-12)

Brown v. Board of Education: Witness to a Landmark Decision, by Jack Greenberg, Twelve Tables Press, $24.95.

Greenberg, who represented the plaintiffs in the Brown decision, recounts his experience with the case.

Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality, by Richard Kluger, Knopf, $24.

An update of the 1976 edition that examines both the case and the changes it brought. A new chapter analyzes the racial integration policies of presidents since the decision, as well as the culture of "hypersegregation" in America.

Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform, by Derrick Bell, Oxford University Press, $25.

Bell, the first tenured black professor at Harvard, notes that the Brown ruling did little to eradicate segregation. Instead, it energized racial tension and branded blacks a damaged race. Effective advocates must realize that real racial progress is made only when the interests of whites converge with the interests of blacks, he says.

Toward Humanity and Justice: The Writings of Kenneth B. Clark, by Woody Klein, Praeger, $79.95.

Clark's psychological studies on the negative effects of segregation provided the basis of the Supreme Court's Brown decision.