Customer Reviews

All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown V. Board of Education

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All Deliberate Speed bears witness to the truth about our two party education system. This book should be on the required reading list for all students in both high school and college. It is a must read for law students who take, or contemplate taking constitutional law courses or anyone who truly wants to understand the impact of Brown v. Board of Education.

All Deliberate Speed speaks the truth. In some chapters the author gives you hope and in other chapters, the author allows the reader to ponder the future. Reading and understanding this book should help eliminate un-substantiated bias against integration. However, there is no question that the author points out the damage racial segregation, housed and surrounded by inequality, does to our society.

For example, in chapter six, Ogletree clearly exposes the reader to the fact that our government denied African-Americans full citizenship rights through legislation, judicial decisions as well as Jim Crow customs and behaviors.

Was the denial of full citizenship rights (education, accommodations, housing, voting) for African-Americans a grant of "affirmative action" for the white majority? Does the phrase "all deliberate speed" give or take away from the impact or the seriousness of the Brown decisions? Ogletree addresses these question and others in his 'adept' analysis of the decisions in Brown v. Board I and in Brown v. Board II.

Ogletree masterfully points out that a proper education includes, but is not limited to ethnic diversity, safe buildings, good teacher pay, desks, books, parental involvement, technology, etc. A proper education for all supports ones ability to successfully integrate oneself into our society and is germane to our survival as a nation. All Deliberate Speed is an excellent, excellent book. Easy to read, easy to understand, provocative, educational and truthful. Separate but equal is inherently un-equal.

This book is instructive of the history not only of this nation's educational system before during and after the historic Brown decision, but of the struggles African Americans have endured as a race in the face of adversity. The book reflects on the contributions of Charles Hamilton Houston to the strtegy employed by Thurgood Marshall and others.

Professor Ogletree further encourages parents to take alternative steps to ensure children receive quality education in order to contribute to the global society in which we all live. As an African American attorney, I am equally challenged to use the law and reason to advocate for improving the way of life for all Americans.

Thank you

Professor Ogletree's book personalizes the history and impact of the Brown v. Board of education decision, expressing its importance through his experiences on the front lines of civil rights activism from the 1970s until the present. Professor Ogletree has been uniquely well placed to write about this subject, witnessing many of the most important moments in our recent history of race relations first hand, and he is himself attempting to write a new chapter in this history as the 21st Century dawn. His critique of Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and Clarence Thomas, as well as his discussion of reparations, gives the forward-looking conclusions of the book special depth and resonance. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with the past, present, and future of racial activism in the United States.

Professor Ogletree has been part of or witnessed some of the greatest moments in the struggle. This book puts you in the moment and gives an incredibly personal and up-close account of the events. Riveting.

This is great book. It gives the real story behind brown vs the board of education. Also, it gives a lot of history relating to the struggles of black people in the last 100 years.

Professor Charles Ogletree has managed to reach the highest levels of American jurisprudence,accompanied by a African American wife and two healthy black children. All of America needs greater exposure to this new breed of Black Leadership.

His first book, With All Deliberate Speed is compelling, but equally significant is that fact that he is a living example of a proud Affirmative Action Baby who has not divorced himself from the Black Community in order to receive national and international affirmation from White America.

This book is a "must read" for all of those folks born in the 50's whose successes in life are a result of the hard work of civil rights activists to make America accountable to all its citizens. Professor Ogletree has done an incredible job of writing a book that can be read and discussed by all Americans who have not given up on the Constitution.

Ogletree provides an insightful context for the average reader to understand that the next step in America's civil rights stuggle is the Reparations Movement.

I highly recommend the book to all.

Lawrence Watson

Professor Ogletree takes you on a personal journey through his life as it is impacted by the passage of Brown...As well as through the difficult efforts at enforcing the new law of the land. As a Brown baby myself, it was a quick read peppered with Black and White American Icons of my adolescence. It has caused my to reflect on the impact of the Brown case upon my own life and that of my people in this country. Scholarly accurate and clear. Comfortable read on an uncomfortable and unresolved topic.
Kudos!

As a first gerneration recipient of the benefits of Brown v Board of Education, it was enlightning to get a up-close view of the behind the scene goings-on of the attempts to stall and erode the promise of "Brown". This is a must read for the public..... to be aware of the diabolical machinations that go on in the back rooms of power to attempt to deny the basic and fundamental right to a good education.

Professor Ogletree illustrates that the promise of "Brown" remains unfulfilled and that we cannot stop fighting the resistance to that promise.

This book is a must read for all, but most importantly for parents who need encouragement to continue in their advocacy to ensure that America makes good on its promise of a quality education for all.

Our eyes must stay on our most precious prize, our children, who are our future. This book serves as a wake up call to all who have stood in the way of the progress of Brown, and to those of us who continue in the struggle. Thank you Charles for sharing your journey, we know that you have not forgotten those whose steps we are privileged to walk in. God bless you and Pam!

".... we will tell the story of how we overcome, and will understand it better, by and by".

Clark & Kathy Reddick

We stand on the broad shoulders of those who risked everything for the next generation. This book is a classic reminder of the obligation we all share if we are to move forward together.

Walter Beasley

Recording artist/Professor of Music Berklee College