When Justice Warren wrote the first opinion for Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, it was likely that he estimated how the different sectors of the American populous would react; however, surely enough, even he was stunned by the opinions handed down by the various editorials from across the nation.
The New York Time's May 1954 editorial All God's Chillun, likened the opinion of the Court with the Eugene O"Neill play All God's Chillun Have Wings in the simplicity of the message behind both: as far as interpretation is concerned, it is the core intent that matters. While the O"Neill article dealt with the dilemma of interracial marriages, and Jefferson and the Continental Congress dealt with the standards to be embodied by our nation, in the end, regardless of how others may be prejudiced, what's written on the great documents (be it the Bible or the Constitution,) that's the golden rule. That there is no ambiguity with the use of the word equal. In defense of its opinion, the Times acknowledges that time would be required to fully implement the opinion of the court; however, in the end, the nation's inherent dependence to the constitutional principle as first introduced in our Declaration of Independence would allow the nation to adjust to the Court's decision.
Other editorials that celebrated the decision, mainly those from Northern and Southern negro-owned publications, declared the significance and ramifications of the ruling. The Daily World of Atlanta predicted that with the advent of the ruling, that the then attempt to privatize education in the state of Georgia would fail - and so it did. Finally, the Chicago Defender amounted the ruling as being a more important event than the creation of the atom and hydrogen bomb - the end of a dual society in American life. It is evident (and perhaps obvious) that these publications would be optimistic and jubilant of the decision - after all, their audience were indeed the focus and moving force behind of the ruling.
