On Friday November 8th, the Hartford Public Library hosted the “Where Integration Meets Innovation” conference organized by One Nation Indivisible and the Sheff Movement Coalition. During the conference, a panel of six, which included Elizabeth Horton Sheff, Martha Stone, Dennis Parker, Amy Stuart Wells, Alex Knopp, and Robert Cotto, all discussed their roles and involvement in creating and sustaining diverse school settings and methods for a successful classroom. Focusing primarily on Elizabeth Horton Sheff, the lead plaintiff of the 1989 Sheff vs. O’Neil court case, her main argument was that racial isolation was affecting the city of Hartford and its children as well as deeming the segregation of schools as unconstitutional.
Sheff began to speak on the time frame that she had been an activist of the integration of Hartford region schools. The main reason why she wanted to stay in Connecticut and keep her son enrolled in school in the Hartford region was because she as well as other parents was committed to their children’s education. She had mentioned that in 1989 74% of the students in 8th grade in Hartford needed assistance in remedial reading. It wasn’t that the kids were failing, but it was the school system that was failing the kids.
As Sheff emphasized that the children come first, she mentioned that it is the parents’ sole responsibility to prepare students to not have an isolated education. As a justice seeker, Sheff at that time took her son around the country to many meetings and activist movements, specifically the March on Washington, which led Milo to become engaged, just at the age of 10, in the Sheff vs. O’Neil court case. This court case, she stated, wasn’t just for the sake of her son, but it was so that parents could provide equal access to education for their children. Sheff closes by stating, “Adults need to stand up to keep the justice road plowed like those before us did”.