Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh
Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh Published by AbramsKids Books Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family's Fight for Desegregation is a stunning, marvelously researched, written and illustrated book about an important but little known event in the history of America, California, Latinx-Americans, education and civil rights. Seven years before the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education desegregated schools in the entire country, Mendez v. Westminster School District was the first case to determine that school segregation itself is unconstitutional and violates the 14th Amendment. Tonatiuh's Author's Note unpacks the layers of the Mendez case, telling readers that key roles were played by both Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren in the Mendez case. Marshall sent friend-of-the-court briefs to the judge in the case and Warren, who, at the time was the governor who signed into law the desegrega…
