George, I get your ? and Sowell?s ? point about the relative merits of economic and political attempts to improve one?s lot. But I still have to say that some kind of federal intervention was probably necessary given the law and constitution as existing by the 1950s. If states are to be in the business of financing and providing education (let?s not debate whether), then they cannot constitutionally and should not prudentially attempt to segregate the resulting schools by race. The 14th Amendment would seem to speak directly to this point, by prohibiting states from denying their citizens equal protection of the laws. I don?t think Brown was necessarily decided on the correct grounds ? the wrong of segregation isn?t predicated on black-only schools being poorly funded or lacking political heft but is instead related to differentiating people by race in the first place ? but I think it or some federal intervention was appropriate given the fact that discrimination’s culprit here was state government, not private citizens acting voluntarily (if idiotically).