Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality

It should be required reading in any college U.S. history course because it shines an intense spotlight on the complex development of legal issues and thinking that produced the end of segregation in the United States.

I do not exaggerate when I say I believe that this is the best history book I've ever read. Further, it's wise to read it now, because an awful lot of the people instrumental in the ultimate decision, Brown vs. the Board of Education, are dying out. The late Thurgood Marshall is a great example of a lost legal talent and courageous leader who did the right thing by all Americans by winning this case. Read this book now, if only so you'll recognize the heroes in their obituaries.

What Richard Kluger has done in this account is spell out the development first of segregation, telling us just who and how the dreaded Jim Crow laws came about-including segregation laws in the North-and then walk us through how, piece by piece, legal decisions were strung together to put an end to legal segregation.

I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and, if I thought about it at all, had the idea that the Brown decision had more or less come out of nowhere. Eventually, I began to catch on, and then I read this book. If you are similar-minded, this book will set you straight and point you to the many unsung heroes who have made us a fairer country, in line with the ideals that helped found this country. If you're a parent looking for good role models, forget sports and entertainment. Look to this book for examples of people who literally risked everything, and often paid dearly, to do the right thing. They didn't shrink from the challenge; they stepped forward, many many times. That so many others did not only reminds us of how fearful we are to force change or risk our own well being to tackle injustice. I wish I could rate it higher.


A book every American should have on his/her shelf   June 7, 2000
Tung Yin (Portland, OR)
16 out of 18 found this review helpful

There are some books that every American needs to read in order to be a responsible citizen; this is one of those books. (The only other that comes to mind right now is "The Federalist Papers.")

"Simple Justice" is really two books in one: the first deals with the horrific institution of slavery in the United States and the post-Civil War oppression of blacks in the form of Jim Crow laws; the second deals with the strategy that desegregationists (principally the NAACP) used to dismantle the formal apartheid of the South.

Evaluated solely on its subject matter, this book would merit the requirement of being read. The story of how Thurgood Marshall (then a top NAACP attorney, later U.S. Solicitor General, then U.S. Supreme Court Justice) chipped away at the "separate but equal" doctrine in small steps gives the reader an appreciation of how entrenched institutional racism was as recently as the mid-20th Century. In addition, the reader will gain an understanding of how what is arguably the most important decision of the Supreme Court of the 1900s came about.

But there's another reason to read "Simple Justice." Richard Kluger is an amazingly gifted writer (for proof, try reading the first chapter of "Ashes to Ashes," his monumental work on the tobacco industry; even if you don't smoke, his description of smoking in the first chapter will have you feeling the smoke go down your throat), and his powerful prose makes you feel the pain that his characters endured as a result of slavery and Jim Crow laws.

By no means is this is a "fun" book to read; indeed, parts of it are incredibly unpleasant to read and will make you ashamed to be an American (unless, of course, you're John Rocker). But it's precisely because Kluger is able to evoke such shame that makes this book so important.


Can I give it a six?   July 24, 2001
Daniel Mittleman (Chicago, IL USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I am taking the time to write a review of this book simply because I consider it the best non-fiction book I have ever read. (And no, I am not a friend or relative of the author.)

The topic is an important topic, but that is not what made this book special for me. What made it special is the narrative style employed by Kluger that makes this book read like a novel. It engaged me and pulled me through to see how the story turned out. (Not the Court Case, I knew that result; but what I didn't know was how the case impacted each of the individual actors. It was a life changing event for all of them and Kluger explores this in detail.)


survival equipment for civil rights lawyers   May 4, 1999
Jeff Scott Olson (Madison, WI)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Since its publication, my little law firm has given a copy of this book to each of my law-student research clerks upon graduation. If they do follow in my footsteps and champion civil rights causes, it is indispensible survival equipment. If it has the same effect on them it did on me when I kept my nightly appointments with it in 1980, it will orient them within the history in which they will play a part, show them how hard work and careful planning can let them face powerful opponents cheerfully, and inspire them to believe that, yes, they can make a difference.


Amazing narrative of legal civil rights history   November 20, 2001
Molly Oberhausen (Louisville, KY USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

Better than any biography on any of the characters involved in the many cases leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Dramatically will increase your understanding of civil rights history. The best legal analysis and historical depiction of the Brown decision. A compelling read.