Ogletree, Charles. All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004.
Reason read: February is the month to celebrate Civil Rights. Well, we should be proactively doing something all year long…
You could call All Deliberate Speed a history book as it is filled with didactic chapters and faculty could use it as a textbook, but I would argue it is more of a beautifully written memoir. Ogletree shares his personal reflections on the civil rights decision of Brown v. Board of Education, the conundrum of legalized racial inequality, and how the words “all deliberate speed” allowed the end of segregation to become a reality at a snail’s pace. Rest assured, this isn’t an autobiography. Ogletree doesn’t delve too deep into his personal life with the exception of how it relates to the topic at hand and his part in it. Ogletree writes, not as one who did his homework on a singular subject, as one standing outside the topic at hand, but rather as one who actually lived the history and had a tangible part of the action. “Present at the creation,” if you will. Ogletree’s narration is as much from fact as it is from memory.
The tradition of “Black Graduation” at Stanford originated as a protest of which author Ogletree had a part.
As an aside, I always love it when an author rights a wrong. Somehow there was a research error and Professor Jack Balkin was not given credit. Ogletree made a point to mention that.
Author fact: Ogletree has a strong family history connection to Brown v. Board of Education.
Book trivia: The black and white photographs in All Deliberate Speed are great.
Nancy said: Pearl called All Deliberate Speed “excellent.” Agreed.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Civil Rights and Wrongs” (p 49).
~*LunaSea*~ 