This tiny, rural town in Cajun country is struggling again to find its racial equilibrium. A 43-year-old desegregation case remained unresolved on Nov. 4 as voters narrowly rejected a property tax increase to build a new Ville Platte High, which has faced decades of neglect since white flight accompanied integration in 1969.
President-elect Obama's historic victory has been frequently described over the past week as the culmination of a long struggle for civil rights that began in the 1950s with historic court decisions like Brown v. Board. And there is great truth in this. But it's worth remembering that, 54 years and counting since the Supreme Court ordered schools to be desegregated "with all deliberate speed," we're still not finished desegregating. Promises made to children in the middle of the 20th century remain unfulfilled for their grandchildren. There's a whole division within the Justice Department full of lawyers who travel to areas, mostly in the rural South, where educational opportunity remains divided along racial lines. There is still a lot of work to be done.
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