Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in town will bring an afternoon of thunderstorms and a high of seventy-seven. Sunrise is 5:29 and sunset 8:13, for 14h 43m 53s of daytime. We’ve a new moon.
Friday’s FW poll asked readers if they thought Australian filmmaker Dave Riggs was too close to a shark when he took a picture of a great white. Just under fifty-four percent (53.85%) of respondents said that they thought he was too close, and 46.15% said that being near the shark was worth the shot.
On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Here are the opening paragraphs of a New York Times story on the decision:
Washington, May 17 — The Supreme Court unanimously outlawed today racial segregation in public schools.
Chief Justice Earl Warren read two opinions that put the stamp of unconstitutionality on school systems in twenty-one states and the District of Columbia where segregation is permissive or mandatory.
The court, taking cognizance of the problems involved in the integration of the school systems concerned, put over until the next term, beginning October, the formulation of decrees to effectuate its 9-to-0 decision.
The opinions set aside the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court in 1896.
“In the field of public education,” Chief Justice Warren said, “the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
He stated the question and supplied the answer as follows:
“We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.”
On this day in 1673, an expedition begins:
1673 – Jolliet and Marquette Expedition Gets Underway
On this date Louis Jolliet, Father Jacques Marquette, and five French voyageurs departed from the mission of St. Ignace, at the head of Lake Michigan, to reconnoitre the Mississippi River. The party traveled in two canoes throughout the summer of 1673, traveling across Wisconsin, down the Mississippi to the Arkansas River, and back again.