Tag Archives: South Carolina

You children write illiterate letters

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Letters of Note: You children write illiterate letters.

In 1958, a schoolboy named Robert Leifert wrote to the author and humourist, James Thurber, and asked for some assistance with a school project. Sadly for Robert (or luckily for Robert, depending on your viewpoint) it seems he caught Thurber on a bad day, and before long the youngster was the proud owner of the following delightfully grumpy response.

Let’s hope it was of some use.

(Source: Selected Letters of James Thurber; Image: James Thurber in 1954, via Wikipedia.)

Mr Robert Leifert

New York City, New York

January 4, 1958

Dear Robert,

Since a hundred schoolchildren a year write me letters like yours—some writers get a thousand—the problem of what to do about such classroom “projects” has become a serious one for all of us. If a writer answered all of you he would get nothing else done. When I was a baby goat I had to do my own research on projects, and I enjoyed doing it. I never wrote an author for his autograph or photograph in my life. Photographs are for movie actors to send to girls. Tell your teacher I said so, and please send me her name.

One of the things that discourage us writers is the fact that 90 per cent of you children write wholly, or partly, illiterate letters, carelessly typed. You yourself write “clarr” for “class” and that’s a honey, Robert, since s is next to a, and r is on the line above. Most schoolchildren in America would do a dedication like the following (please find the mistakes in it and write to me about them):

To Miss Effa G Burns

Without who’s help

this book could never

of been finished it,

is dedicated with

gartitude by it’s

arthur.

Show that to your teacher and tell her to show it to her principal, and see if they can find the mistakes.

Just yesterday a letter came in from a girl your age in South Carolina asking for biographical material and photograph. That is not the kind of education they have in Russia, we are told, because it’s too much like a hobby or waste of time. What do you and your classmates want to be when you grow up—collectors? Then who is going to help keep the United States ahead of Russia in science engineering, and the arts?

Please answer this letter. If you don’t I’ll write to another pupil.

Sincerely yours,

JAMES THURBER

Linda Brown After the Unanimous Ruling That School Segregation is Unequal: A Proud Heritage: Photos From the Civil Rights Movement

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Linda Brown, a fifth grade, 5 year old girl, had to go to a school 5 miles away even though there was a public school just 4 blocks away from her house. She was denied admission to this elementary school because of her race.

This photo was taken in a school in Fort Myer, Virginia on September 8, 1954, months after the the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (May 17, 1954).

As a third-grader in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950s, Linda Brown Thompson is often credited with single-handedly bringing down segregation in America. The truth is far more nuanced and interesting.

In fact, Brown’s family was just one of thirteen African-American families recruited in Topeka by the NAACP. In 1950, the national civil rights organization was busy enlisting plaintiffs nationwide in preparation for a legal assault on the “separate but equal” Supreme Court ruling that had permitted segregation in American schools for half a century.

In the fall of 1950, the Browns and 12 Topeka families were asked by the NAACP to try and enroll their children in their neighborhood white schools, with the expectation that they would be rejected. The NAACP then filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education in Topeka. That lawsuit and others brought on behalf of plaintiffs in Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware and Washington, DC were presented together on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. By alphabetical accident, because Brown’s name started with a ‘b’, the landmark 1954 decision that ended legalized segregation in America went down in history as “Brown v. Board of Education.”

The Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brown v. Board of Education was unanimous — the doctrine of “separate-but-equal” was inherently unconstitutional. Delivering the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren asserted that “segregated schools are not equal and cannot be made equal, and hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws.” This landmark ruling began our nation’s long journey toward school desegregation.

Open Letter To Politicians.

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Dear Politicians,

Here is all I want from you: I want you to tell me who you are, not who you aren’t. I want you to tell me why you are right for the job, not why your your opponent is wrong for the job. I want you to to compel me to donate to your campaign because of your actions, not as a retaliation against someone else’s. I want to cast my vote for who I believe in the most, not for who I disagree with the least.

Thank you for your time.

Scott Parker-Anderson