In June the court announced it would hear the cases even though they had been upheld by three federal appeals courts since 2003. The Bush administration filed a brief backing challenges to the plans.

One of the demonstrators’ most popular chants was "Brown won us rights! But we still got to fight!” The doctrine of "separate but equal," codifying racist segregation of public facilities, was overturned in the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. Legal segregation against Blacks was swept away by a two-decades-long social movement of millions known as the civil rights movement.

The largest contingent of the mostly Black students who rallied outside the Supreme Court and at the Lincoln Memorial came from Howard University and several area high schools.

"We're proud of the response we have gotten from Howard students," said Brenda Johnson, a math major. "We have to do this for ourselves and the next generation. Just look at the schools here in the nation's capital and you will see that they are still separate and unequal."

Sean Perry came with a large group from Ballou High School that included members of the school's marching band. He said the school lacked enough books, computers, and science equipment. "The place needs painting. Lots of windows are still broken and it’s starting to get cold. They need more teachers. Sometimes you don't know who will be the teacher, or if there will be one," Perry said.

This was Perry’s first demonstration. "This gives us a chance to show that we’re aware of what’s going on and that if we’re given the opportunity we can fight for our rights," he said. "We are not the lost generation."

In 1973 a federal court found the Louisville school system to be segregated. That led to court-ordered busing in that area from 1975 to 1984. The system remained under court supervision until 2000. Today the 97,000-student school system in Louisville is 34 percent Black, the rest predominantly white.

The plan facing legal challenge aims to obtain between 15 percent and 50 percent Black student enrollment in each school with the exception of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and some “magnet” schools. Crystal Meredith, a white parent who sued the Louisville school board, says the plan kept her son out of a school in his neighborhood.

In 1977 the Seattle school board began voluntary busing in the 47,000-student system to achieve greater integration but ended the program in 1988. An "Open Choice" plan, begun in 1998, aims to establish student ratios in each school that are close to the overall composition in Seattle—60 percent oppressed minorities and 40 percent white. It allows students to attend any school of their choice. Where demand exceeds available seats, siblings of current students are given priority. In other cases an "integration tiebreaker" favors students whose race tips a school toward the 60-40 ratio.

Many students at the December 4 rally drew a connection between the challenges to public school desegregation and recent attacks on affirmative action.

"We are from historically Black colleges and universities," said Keith Jones, 21, a political science major at Morehouse College in Atlanta, which sent three busloads. "Many of us will want to do our graduate work at schools like the University of Michigan or the University of California. Opponents of affirmative action are trying to shut the door on us. We are here today to say that won't happen," he said.

"For me this is a continuation of the struggle when millions took to the streets to fight for immigrant rights," said Issamar Camacho, addressing the rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Camacho, a student at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, referred to the large demonstrations in April and May for the legalization of undocumented immigrants. "We walked out of school all over the city of Los Angeles. We stood up to say we are not illegal, we are human beings, and we will fight for our rights." she said to loud applause and cheers.

The march and rally was organized by the By Any Means Necessary Coalition, which organized a 2003 rally of 75,000 at the Supreme Court in response the challenges to affirmative action admissions at the universities of Michigan and Ohio.

Students carried banners and placards or wore emblems from several historically Black colleges. Among them were Morehouse, Clark, and Spelman in Atlanta; North Carolina A&T and Fayetteville State University in North Carolina; Hampton University in Virginia; Tennessee State; and Morgan State and Bowie State in nearby Maryland.

Groups of high school youth came from Detroit along with students from the University of Michigan. A busload came from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  
 
 
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