…At this time: the death of Rosa Parks. And her celebration, in many circles, as “the mother of the civil rights movement.”

As it turns out, I have been working on an article, premised upon the afro-centric view of racism in America, and the general denial of racism in the southwest.

I’ve chosen as my focus for this piece, the case of Mendez v. Westminster – Which preceded Brown v. Board of Education by several years. This has particular gravitas for me, as, while I attended Johnson Intermediate – the site of the Mendez farm, I was never taught about this. Neither have any of my California-schooled contemporaries! In fact, a query with one of my favorite Constitutional scholars – Eugene Volokh of UCLA – got the reply, “never heard of it.” In fact, even the Mendez’ granddaughter had not heard of it, until she studied at UCR.

To date, I want to thank Prof. Vicki Ruiz, of UCI, for her help. It seems there were other cases – Alverez v. Lemon Grove, which preceded Mendez, and others in Texas and Arizona, which followed, which all led up to Brown. I’m working on those now.

I hope to tie this all together under an umbrella of general racism and segregation.