1896 1954

1
1896 1954

• 60 years Court Sanctioned Apartheid Plessy v.
  Ferguson (1896)
• Separate but Equal Doctrine
• 40 years post-Dred Scott v. Sanford
• The word citizen as used in the Constitution
  does not include slaves

2
30 Yrs. Post-Civil War

• Post-war constitutional amendments
• 13th Am. abolishing slavery (1865)14th Am.
  estab. P I Clause Equal Protection. Applies
  only to government action. (1868)
• 15th Amendment guaranteeing right to vote
  regardless of race (1870)
• States Rights a contentious issue

3
The Court sanctioned legislatively imposed
segregation in the South and border states in its
1896 decision permitting Louisiana to segregate
railroad cars by race.
4
Plessy v. Ferguson

• Forcibly ejected from RR coach Imprisoned
  after Paying for and Sitting in a Vacant Seat
  reserved for whites only.
• Challenged constitutionality of La. statute
• No person shall occupy seats in railway
  coaches, other than the ones assigned to them, on
  account of the race they belong to.

5
Plessy (cont.)

• Segregation, if truly providing separate yet
  equal facilities and accommodations, does not
  violate 14th Amendment.
• This is a social, not political or constitutional
  issue.
• Constitution cannot place races on equal footing.
  
• Must happen voluntarily.

6
Plessy (cont.)

• Separate but equal
• Satisfies formal equality
• Kept both races separate
• Applied equally to both
• Only Negative if one race chooses to see it that
  way

7
Plessy DISSENT

• Justice J. M. Harlan
• Constitution is Color-blind neither Knows nor
  Tolerates classes.
• Compares decision to Dred Scott
• Arbitrary Racial Separation of Citizens is Badge
  of Servitude
• Inconsistent w/ Civil Freedom Equality

8
Plessy Implications

• Far-reaching consequences
• Systematic and Institutional Racial Segregation
  of Everyday Life
• Restaurants
• Inns
• Transportation
• Education
• Waiting Rooms

9
Greyhound Rest Stop atKentucky-Tennessee Border
(1943)Colored Dining Room In Rear
10
Billingsville Elementary School
11
Drinking Fountain for Blacks
12
Late 1890s early 1900s

• 187 Lynchings per Year, mostly in South
• Encyclopedia Brittanica
• Nearly unanimous consent of anthropologists ...
  the Negro occupies the lowest position in the
  evolutionary scale
• Grandfather Clauses
• Maintained Separation of Poor Blacks Whites by
  Grandfathering in Votes of Ppl. Whose
  Ancestors Voted before Reconstruction. Lifted
  Poll Taxes, Property Taxes, Literacy Screening.

13
1900s through Teens

• 1919 lynching of accused rapist
• Chased by dogs, shot, captured
• No trial.
• Tennessee News headlines
• 3,000 will burn negro. J. Hartfield will be
  lynched by mob at 500 today. Negro is jerky
  sullen as burning hour nears.
• Crowd of Whites arrives with Picnic Baskets, and
  Carried off Souvenirs of Body.

14
Alabama Lynching (kids look on)
15
Lynching Uniquely American(Post Card)
16
Roaring Twenties

• 19th Amendment Prohibition on Alcohol
• Speakeasies, Bathtub Gin, Organized Crime
• Religious Fundamentalism
• Scopes Monkey Trial (Clarence Darrow)
• White Superiority based in Christianity
• Economic Prosperity for Whites

17
The Roaring Twenties

• Major Social Technological Changes
• Disillusionment following WWI
• Conservative Republican presidents
• Immigration limited to 2 of each Ethnic Group
• Mechanized Farming

18
Sharecropping Poverty

• Planters exploited system
• Sharecroppers often wound up in debt
• No Income during Off-Season, Croppers Forced to
  Buy Food Clothing on Credit from Plantation
  Commissaries.

19
1920s 5-year-old Boy Chimney Sweep
20
Sharecropping Poverty

• Tenants often forced to sell their share of Crop
  to Plantation at Below-Market Prices.
• While Planters enjoyed great prosperity, Tenants
  Stuck in Endless Debt Cycle.
• Plantations consolidated and centralized
• Opportunity for advancement gone
• Entrenched in poverty, sharecroppers Headed North
  for industrial jobs.

21
Great Migration

• Factory Jobs
• The exodus began with World War I steady stream
  of Blacks began leaving the South for the North
  and the West.
• Planters Fortunes Relied on Black Labor
• Determined to keep Blacks on their Plantations
• Some Planters offered Better Conditions Others
  Resorted to violence
• Escaped in cloak of darkness
• Train Stations Guards pulled Blacks off Trains
  and returned them to Plantations.

22
Great Depression

• Poor distribution of Purchasing Power among
  Minorities Blue Collar
• Unable to Buy Cars Houses to Maintain Econ
  Growth
• Farm income declined 66 from 1920 to 1929
• 68 of Blacks worked on Farms or as Domestics
• Blacks Last In, First Out of Jobs

23
Convict Lease System

• Imprisoned Black Men in same manner as
  Sharecropping.
• Jailed on False Charges of Vagrancy, then Hired
  Out as Cheap Labor to Local Whites
• Extremely Difficult to Avoid this System

24
1920s Education

• Migration Spurred on Lack of Educational
  Opportunities in South
• White school boards seldom hired enough teachers
  for Black students
• Teachers rarely College Grads
• Some So. Counties had a 1 to 100 Teacher-Student
  Ratio
• Officials refused to Open Schools until every
  Last Bit of Harvest Brought in, even if it took
  several extra Months.

25
1920s N.C., Oasis in DesertSecond Ward High
School Diplomas for Colored People
26
1930s Word Racism

• Word First Commonly used to Describe Nazi
  Theories
• White So. Supremacists used Word to Justify why
  Jim Crow Reqd to kepp Blacks Separated
  Unequal.
• Fear of Sexual Contamination via Rape or
  Inter-Marriage
• Efforts to guarantee Race Purity in the American
  South anticipated aspects of the official Nazi
  persecution of Jews in the 1930s.

27
KKK poster from 1930s
28
Ku Klux Klan

• Blacks Hanged or Burned to death by KKK Lynch
  Mobs to ensure Color Line Scrupulously Upheld

29
KKK Business Card
30
Amarillo, Texas
31
1940s Mississippi
32
1940s S.C. Train Station Colored Waiting Room

33
1950s
34
Bombingham, Alabama

• 1955 Bus Boycott led by Reverend Martin Luther
  King
• Conflicts between the Civil Rights Movement
  Those who Fought for White Way of Life.
• Between 1948-1965, over 200 Black Churches
  Homes in the Deep South bombed
• Alabama the worst

35
Home on The Rails
36
1955 M. L. K. s 1st Arrest
37
Civil Rights Time Line

• 1954 Brown v. Board decision
• 1955 Rosa Parks (NAACP) refuses to give up Bus
  Seat
• 1957 Southern Christian Leadership Conference
  major force in Civil Rights
• Dr. King SCLCs 1st President
• Pres. Eisenhower sends troops to intervene in
  Desegregation
• Little Rock, Arkansas

38
Civil Rights Time Line (cont.)

• 1960 Sit-ins
• 1961 Freedom Riders Bus test rides
• Mob sets Bus Ablaze
• 1963 Churches Blown Up Medger Evers (NAACP)
  murdered
• De La Beckwith NOT Convicted until 1993
• 1964 Civil Rights Act of 1964
• 1965 Voting Rights Act Eases Registration for
  Blacks
• 1968 Reverend King SHOT
• 1968 Civil Rights Act of 1968 Prevents Housing
  Discrimination.

39
1950s NAACP Recruitment Poster
40
Brown I II

• Pre-Brown Didnt have to examine separate but
  equal to grant relief to black plaintiffs Brown I
• Brown I Separate but equal not OK
• Brown II Told district courts to fashion
  equitable remedies to effectuate constitutional
  requirements
• racially nondiscriminatory school system
• prompt reasonable start

41
Brown v. Board TeamPost-Victory (Thurgood
Marshall center)
42
Brown Family
43
Griffin, Green, Civil Rights Act

• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• School board argued the statute forbids bussing
  order by court
• Court finds that statute concerned with limiting
  judicial/government jurisdiction
• No power to deal with de facto segregation
• De jure segregation not just racial imbalance,
  court must find underlying policy of segregation
• Griffin Green cases
• School districts need to implement Brown I II
  promptly
• Dilatory tactics from school boards will not be
  tolerated by the courts.

44
Swann I (Dist. Ct.)

• Facts School board had residential patterns
  which resulted in school segregation.
• Had three chances and fail to come up with
  acceptable plan for the court
• Ct appoints Dr. Finger to fix school boards
  unacceptable plan
• Remedy Court approves portion of board plan
  adds Fingers elementary school plan.
• High Schools (board plan) Redrawing school
  attendance lines --gt 17 - 36 black students in
  each of 9 high schools. Additionally 300 black
  students transferred to predominantly white high
  schools.
• 1500 students bussed under plan (ct estimate) v.
  2500 (school board estimate)

45
Swann I Dist. Ct. (cont.)

• Junior High
• 4 options (rezone, 2-way transport., reassign
  pupils, or adopt Finger plan)
• Board chose Finger plan (rezoning combined with
  satellite districts --gt black kids from inner
  city to white suburban schools)
• 2500 students bussed under plan (court estimate)
  vs 4300 students bussed (school board estimate)
• Elementary School Finger plan implemented -
  geographic zoning - ratio of not less than 60/40
  white to blacks --gt increase of 39 of students
  being bussed / 32 increase in buses
• 9300 students (court estimate) vs. 12,500 (school
  board estimate)
• 90 buses (court estimate) vs. 269 (School Board
  Est.)
• Total Expenditures 3.5 million (School Board
  Est.)
• Operating Costs 266,000 (school board
  estimate) vs. 586,800 (school board estimate)
• Overall increases of 56 of pupils being shipped
  49 increase in fleet of buses

46
Swann II (4th Cir. Ct. Appeals)

• Argument on Appeal
• Bussing improper in violation of the Civil Rights
  Act - court disagrees
• Holding
• Affirmed Dist. Ct. Order Regarding Senior Jr.
  High Schools
• Remanded Elementary School portion, finding
  bussing requirements too great of a burden on
  school district
• Courts Adopts Test of Reasonableness
• If School Dist. makes reasonable effort, then
  courts wont necessarily find unconstitutional.
• If despite all reasonable efforts to desegregate,
  some schools continue to be segregated due to the
  neighborhoods, additional steps must be taken

47
Swann II (4th Cir. Ct. Appeals) cont.

• Remand Back to District Court to revise the
  Elementary School portion of the order.
  Appellate court suggests alternatives to bussing
  which include
• Rezoning with or without satellite district
  schools
• Pairing schools - exchange of pupils between one
  white and one black school
• Grouping - similar to pairing but with multiple
  schools
• School consolidation
• Court cautions against not rigidly adhering to
  the 60/40 ratio
• PROMPT ACTION Essential!
• Order Issued May 26, 1970
• Plaintiffs must file new plan by June 30, 1970
  after consulting with experts from Dept. of
  Health, Ed. Welfare

48
Swann III Sup. Ct.

• Argument on Appeal Swann moved for further
  relief based on Green companion cases
• Holding Reversed court of appeals - restored
  district court in full
• once violation has occurred, court has wide range
  of equitable powers
• Central Issue What is the scope of the courts
  equitable powers in four situations
• Situation 1 Use of racial quotas (60/40 ratio)
  
• Dist Ct created 71/29 percent ratio based on
  general spread of population as a starting point
  for shaping remedies
• School board defaulted on duty to come up with an
  acceptable
• Supreme court held that this limited use of ratio
  was acceptable

49
Swann III Sup. Ct. (cont.)

• Situation 2 Is the elimination of every
  all-white/black school necessary?
• D Ct acceptable to not all have to be
  desegregated
• S Ct requires that the plan require for a
  minority to majority transfers within the
  district
• Also, where the plan doesnt eliminate all
  one-race schools, the school board has the burden
  of showing that this is not the result of present
  or past discriminatory actions

50
Swann III Sup. Ct. (cont.)

• Situation 3 Gerrymandering of School Dists or
  Attendant Zones
• Dist. Ct Plan had created zones that were not
  contiguous and broadly spread out through the
  district
• S Ct Perfectly acceptable to do this
• S Ct Recognize limits inherent to this remedy

51
Swann III Sup. Ct. (cont.)

• Situation 4 Bussing
• D Ct Ordered extensive bussing at the
  elementary school level
• S Ct Bussing an acceptable remedy
• Bussing Integral Part of System has been for
  years
• 18 million of nations public school kids
  transported by bus in 1969
• Limits Where distance or time of travel is
  extensive enough to impinge on health of child or
  the educational process.
• Decree provided that the busses would be on
  direct routes
• Elementary school - 7 miles, 35 minutes at most
• School board tried to argue at appellate level
  that due to traffic etc would make it take
  forever
• S Ct compares with the original school board plan
  where average trip was 15 miles one way taking
  over one hour.
• Desegregation plans cannot be limited to walk in
  schools

52
Swann III Sup. Ct. (cont.)

• Cant evaluate if Dist. Ct. was reasonable,
  feasible, or workable because plan had yet to be
  implemented
• Substance over form (yeah!)
• Future Equitable Authority Courts have authority
  to revisit the issue to fix future problems.
• No year-by-year adjustments required
• Limited to cases where there is a showing that
  school authorities or state officials have
  deliberately tried to fix or alter demographic
  patterns to affect racial composition of schools.

53
Belk Decision - 2001

• Unitary Status has been achieved
• Race-based admission policy for magnet schools
  unconstitutional
• Courts declined to impose new injunctions

54
As of 1999

• 27 of the 57 schools primarily one race
• 18 schools over 85 black
• 9 schools over 85 white