Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was only 7 when the Supreme Court ruled in the Brown v. Board of Education case that separate but equal was unconstitutional.
Before that, though, Green rode the bus from Fort Walton Beach, Fla., to Crestview, Fla., to go to school every day.
“I can tell you what it was like to be in a segregated school and drive by white schools, where the buildings were newer, the buses were newer, where they had the best books,” Green told The Hill.
The lawmaker remembered getting some of those books — which were considered “new” to him and his classmates, even though sometimes the previous student’s name would still be written inside. Other times, pages would be ripped out of the books.
When he entered his senior year, Green transferred from the all-Black W.E. Combs High School to the all-white Choctawhatchee High School.
Green said he was one of just three Black students in a…
