The Road To Brown

The title of this excellent documentary refers to the landmark decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 1954: Brown vs. Board of Education; a decision which resulted in the desegregation of American schools. The Brown decision, however, did not come about overnight. Writer/director Mykola Kulish has put together an intriguing look at the chain of events which led to Brown, with particular focus on a man that history has already forgotten: Charles Houston. Born in 1895 into a privileged family, Houston understood early on that the way to kill Jim Crow would be through the court systems. To that end, he planned and mapped out a strategy which targeted education as the primary area in which to attack the "separate but equal" doctrine. Working in conjunction with the NAACP, Houston brought suit for equal pay for black teachers, campaigned for voting rights, and later set his sights on the inequities in transportation laws. He died from a heart attack from overwork two years before the Brown case began, but it's clear that without Houston's brilliant legal groundwork, the Brown decision might have been many more years in the future. Superbly paced and edited, The Road to Brown is a compelling and timely look at the roots of the Civil Rights movement. Highly recommended. (Available from: California Newsreel, 149 Ninth St./420, San Francisco, CA 94103.)