Politicization of civics hinders teaching of law, history, Browne-Marshall tells Club's Member-Author Group

Civics education has become politicized, inhibiting children from learning about the law and history, said Gloria Browne-Marshall, author of "The U.S. Constitution: An African American Context," at an event sponsored by the National Press Club's Member-Author Group on Sept. 15.

Highlighting findings from this year's survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennslvania, which found that 47 percent of Americans cannot name the three branches of government, Browne-Marshall said that while Americans are surrounded by laws, most do not know what they are and how they affect us.

Browne-Marshall, a constitutional law professor at John Jay College and fellow and visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, reviewed how the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777 based on each state having their own laws, gave way in 1789 to the Constitution, which united the nation under three branches of government: the legislative, the executive and the judicial.

In conjunction with her book, Browne-Marshall has teamed up with WHYY, Philadelphia's public television station, to produce a four-color animated series, “Your Democracy,” designed so people of any age can learn what the Constitution is and what it does. Participants at the virtual event were treated to the first segment of the series.

With Browne-Marshall as guide, the video explains the U.S. system of government by explaining each branch of government's designated powers and responsibilities. Her overall message relates to the preamble of the Constitution and the phrase “We the People.”

“We all have constitutional rights. Well, right now we do, but back in 1787, ‘We the People’ didn’t include everybody: people of color, women and Native Americans. We had to push, pull and fight and make laws to make this Constitution work for everybody,” Browne-Marshall says in the first episode.

“Your Democracy" can be viewed on WHYY’s YouTube channel.

As a civil-rights attorney who has represented the Southern Poverty Law Center and the NAACP, Brown-Marshall specializes in how the Constitution specifically impacts African Americans. She explained that initially the Constitution counted,enslaved Black people as three-fifth of a person for purposes of representation and taxation. Later amendments, specifically the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, attempted to reverse the course but were often compromised by a pattern of discriminatory laws, she said.

The presentation was a quick trip through history highlighting Supreme Court cases such as Plessy vs. Fergusson in 1896, which allowed for “separate but equal” facilities for people of different races, and Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, which legally ended school segregation.

Copies of "The U.S. Constitution: An African American Context" are available by emailing [email protected].

Browne-Marshall has written several books and two short award-winning films. She is a legal commentator on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, BBC, NPR. She has addressed law and racial justice in England, France, Ghana and Rwanda, Canada, South Africa and before the United Nations.

The Member-Author Group produces events for Club members to feature their recently published books. The group meets the second Tuesday each month at noon. For more information or to join or to have the group produce an event, please email Joe Motheral at [email protected].