COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW | May 2010 | Jack Greenberg
For much of their histories, the Roma in Eastern Europe and African Americans traversed similar paths. Both endured centuries of slavery and were emancipated, almost simultaneously, during the mid-nineteenth century. Both continued to suffer years of discrimination, poverty, inferior housing, deficient health, and segregated education. During World War II, however, their paths forked. Perhaps 1,500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. While the post-war period in the United States brought with it the civil rights movement and legal victories striking down segregation, in Eastern Europe the Roma came under Soviet domination. Roma got jobs, apartments, and welfare, but were not equipped to function in modern economies. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Roma remained at the depths of Eastern European societies. Roma education, essential for climbing out of that abyss, has remained segregated and inferior [...]