A look around the Emil Wandishin Gymnasium at Ewing High School which hosted Trenton Central High School boy’s basketball team produced one significant observation — desegregation failed. Big time. With wall-to-wall Blacks and Hispanics in attendance, including a majority of students, Wandishin Gymnasium resembled the famous Tornado Alley of Trenton where segregation evolved to integration followed by extreme segregation as flight siphoned white students into nearby suburban school districts. The setting produced several questions for a friend who teaches at Ewing High. When did Ewing High turn? Where do White kids in Ewing go to school? And, of course, once gone Black will schools ever go back? Actually, the phone call to the teacher represented a need for verification, that my eyes had correctly assessed the school situation. This would not have been the first time dwindling eyesight had played tricks. “No, you’re right,” the teacher confirmed. “There’s many more Blacks and Latinos here. I’ve been here long enough to witness the change. I’m not even sure where all the White students went.” A U.S. News & World Report on Education estimated minority enrollment near 78.1 percent at Ewing High with Blacks (46.9) and Hispanics (23.6) composing a minority majority in a school attended by approximately 1,080 students. Approximately 20-percent of Caucasian students attend Ewing High. Of course, basketball attendance hardly represents a litmus test for integration but this changeover makes for interesting conversation, especially since a Ewing Township population shows a 50-percent Caucasian population. In contrast, Trenton Central High School features an estimated 2,100 students with 63-percent Hispanic and 35-percent Black. The numbers underscore New Jersey’s rank as the seventh-most segregated state for Black and Latino students, according to an analysis by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles. New Jersey names almost 600 school districts. While we produce celebrations for hard work and achievement cultivated by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the speeches of mountain tops, promised lands and the ginormous whopper of a dream, including this portion of text from his “I Have a Dream” speech from August, 1963, seem irrelevant as the U.S. backslides following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”, Dr. King preached. His hopes and dreams included that one day, even in racially-charged Alabama, “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” Such socializations root in elementary education, fertile with possibilities for early childhood teachings of equality and humanity. If those classrooms lack significant lessons of diversity then Dr. King’s dream starts compromised. Dr. King referenced President Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation then notes, “100 years later, the Negro is not free,” that life of the Negro remained, “sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.” About 43-percent of Ewing High rank as economically disadvantaged while Trenton High shows a 53-percent statistic. Needless to say, poverty or financial struggle impacts learning. Of course, several other excerpts of the King speech activates our dream genes. Yes, dreams should deliver wild imaginations although the civil rights activist ventured into whimsical revery, trusting and believing that the U.S. could not only repair past indiscretions but also prepare a pathway forward toward racial harmony. Pardon the negativity but it’s not going to happen anytime in the near future. Martin Luther King’s “Promised Land” from any mountain top seems far off. L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at [email protected].