298 Blackwell Publishing IncMalden, USAYSSEYearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education0077-57622006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd20061052298315Origi- nal ArticlesTHE MEANING OF BROWN… FOR NOWLADSON-BILLINGS Gloria Ladson-Billings is Kellner Family chair in urban education and a professor of curriculum and instruction and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Part Four Looking Forward: Pressing Challenges That Lie Ahead chapter 15 The Meaning of Brown . . . for Now GLORIA LADSON- BILLINGS Louisiana, Louisiana, they’re trying to wash us away . . . they’re trying to wash us away. Lyrics by Randy Newman, sung by Aaron Neville (1991) I am completing this chapter at the same time that my television, radio, and newspapers are filled with images of the horror that is Hurricane Katrina. These images are the starkest indications that America is sharply divided along race and class lines. Tens of thousands of poor people are displaced and penniless. Their homes, jobs, posses- sions, and hope have washed away in the putrid, toxic waters of Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, have died. Americans outside of the area have had to transition from the military assault known as “shock and awe” to a federal disaster response that has been called “shockingly awful.” Watching hour after hour of around-the-clock coverage of the after- math of the hurricane has reminded me how tenuous the hold large segments of our society have on the promise of America. It has both saddened and sickened me, not because the images showed me some- thing I did not know, but rather because they underscored the brutality