The struggle to end racial segregation in America’s public schools has been long and arduous. It was ostensibly won in the 1954 Brown v. Tulsa Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. But racist resistance has been intense. Years later, extensive school segregation remains for Black children. The High Court has essentially overturned Brown without explicitly saying so. This paper assesses the effects of educational desegregation that has managed to occur. Discussion concerning the results of desegregation has revolved around test scores and the difficulties involved with “busing,” but the principal positive effect is often overlooked: namely, that the substantial rise of the Black-American middle class in the last half-century has been importantly enhanced by school desegregation. This paper reviews the educational backgrounds of eighteen Black Americans who have risen to the highest status positions in American politics and business in recent decades. They represent the desegregated Black cohort who succeeded because desegregation enabled them to break into the nation’s deeply established pipeline of privilege.

在美国公立学校结束种族隔离的斗争长期而艰巨。它表面上是在 1954 年布朗诉塔尔萨教育委员会最高法院裁决中获胜的。但种族主义抵抗一直很激烈。多年后，黑人儿童仍然存在广泛的学校隔离。高等法院基本上在没有明确说明的情况下推翻了布朗。本文评估了已成功发生的教育取消种族隔离的影响。关于取消种族隔离的结果的讨论围绕着考试成绩和“公交车”所涉及的困难展开，但主要的积极影响往往被忽视：即在过去的半个世纪里，美国黑人中产阶级的大幅崛起因学校废除种族隔离而得到了重要的加强。本文回顾了近几十年来在美国政界和商界升至最高地位的 18 名美国黑人的教育背景。他们代表了废除种族隔离的黑人群体，他们成功了，因为废除种族隔离使他们能够闯入国家根深蒂固的特权管道。