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During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

During the days of segregation, there was not a place of higher learning for African Americans. They were simply not welcome in many of the traditional schools. And from this backward policy grew the network of historical black colleges and universities.

We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.

So one of the things that happened with integration in the South is they found that the black teachers were much more educated than the white teachers.

At present, black children are more segregated in their public schools than at any time since 1968. In the inner-city schools I visit, minority children typically represent 95 percent to 99 percent of class enrollment.

An awful lot of people come to college with this strange idea that there's no longer segregation in America's schools, that our schools are basically equal; neither of these things is true.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

I believe education is the great equalizer.

Racial segregation has come back to public education with a vengeance.

The segregated schools of today are arguably no more equal than the segregated schools of the past.