Laneton Parsonage V1: A Tale for Children on the Practical Use of a Portion of the Church Catechism (1857)

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. One hundred and seventy-five years after one of the greatest documents ever written laid the foundation for a new country called the United States of America, little equality existed between descendants of former slaves, and descendants of former slave owners. The laws of the land suggested that all men were NOT created equal. The school system in much of America reinforced this belief. This is the story of two great men, one black, one white, one lawyer, one judge, both born into circumstances that should have kept them from achieving hero status, who laid the foundation to change the nationas most fundamental sign and cause of racism: an unequal school system separated by race. Louis Redding, Delawareas first black attorney, was the nationas first attorney to win a public school desegregation case and Collins Seitz, an Irish American, became the nationas first judge to suggest that desegregation was unconstitutional. In doing so, they helped America to come closer to the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the democracy laid out in the Constitution.