Brown v. Board of Education

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Brown v. Board of Education

• Separate But Equal?

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Jim Crow was the name of a black character in a
minstrel show. The term was used to signify the
laws and customs of segregation.
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Strategies to Segregate

• Poll Taxes-After the Fifteenth Amendment was
  passed, many Southern states enacted poll tax
  laws. These required each voter to pay a tax to
  vote. There was a grandfather clause written in
  so that anyone whose ancestors had voted could
  vote for free. The poll tax was used against poor
  blacks as a means to prevent them from voting.

• Literacy Tests-This refers to the practice of
  testing the literacy of citizens as a requirement
  of voting in Southern states. Citizens would be
  required to read a section of the Bible or any
  other book before being allowed to vote. A
  grandfather clause was written into this law too
  so that white citizens whom are unable to read
  could still vote.

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The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a secret society
created in 1865. Members rode around whipping,
burning and lynching thousands of African
Americans.
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Plessy v Ferguson

• Homer Plessy sued the state of Louisiana for
  jailing him because he refused to sit in a
  railroad car reserved for blacks only. He lost
  his case. The Supreme Court established a
  separate but equal policy which would guide
  racial relations for sixty years.

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Separate but Equal
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Jim Crow Schools

• Most schools had no desks or chairs. The books
  were often worn out and outdated (if there were
  books!). Many buildings were falling apart and
  were unsafe. Teachers were qualified, but only
  African Americans could teach black children.
  Teaching materials were poor or nonexistent.

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Separate but Equal???
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White children from the Summerton area attended
this red brick building with a separate lunchroom
and science laboratories.
61 colored schools were also located in
Summerton. Most held one or two classrooms.
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Schools lacked electricity, running water and
bathrooms.
Heat was a luxury many schools did not have.
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TOPEKA, KANSAS 8 year old Linda Brown and
her two sisters had to walk six blocks to get to
school. They had to cross busy railroad tracks
and wait for a rickety old bus to take them to
school even though there was a new neighborhood
school closer to her home.
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• In 1953 there were 21 states with segregated
  schools. In Virginia black students protested
  overcrowded conditions. In South Carolina parents
  sued the schools for equal funding for white and
  black students. Two cases from Delaware and
  Washington DC also found their way to the US
  Supreme Court. The cases were all joined together
  under the name
• Brown v. Board of Education

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The NAACP decided to challenge school segregation
and Thurgood Marshall was selected as the lawyer
to lead the cause.
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Testing documents

• Children were asked to color one of the figures
  to look like yourself and the other how you
  would like little children to be.

• Fifty-two percent colored the other child white
  or an irrelevant color.

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SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS

• The Segregationists Arguments
• The Constitution did not require white and
  African American children to attend the same
  schools.
• Social separation of blacks and whites was a
  regional custom the states should be left free
  to regulate their own social affairs.
• 3. Segregation was not harmful to black people.
  
• Whites were making a good faith effort to
  equalize the two
• educational systems. But because black
  children were still living with the effects of
  slavery, it would take some time before they were
  able to compete with white children in the same
  classroom.

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• SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS
• The Integrationists Arguments
• In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court had
  misinterpreted the equal protection clause of the
  Fourteenth Amendment. Equal protection of the
  laws did not allow for racial segregation.
• The Fourteenth Amendment allowed the government
  to prohibit any discriminatory state action based
  on race, including segregation in public schools.
  
• The Fourteenth Amendment did not specify whether
  the states would be allowed to establish
  segregated education.
• Psychological testing demonstrated the harmful
  effects of segregation on the minds of African
  American children.

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THE LANDMARK DECISION

• Segregation of white and colored children in
  public schools has a detrimental effect upon the
  colored children. The impact is greater when it
  has the sanction of the law, for the policy of
  separating the races is usually interpreted as
  denoting the inferiority of the Negro group...Any
  language in contrary to this finding is rejected.
  We conclude that in the field of public education
  the doctrine of separate but equal has no
  place. Separate educational facilities are
  inherently unequal. Earl Warren, Chief Justice
  of the U.S. Supreme Court

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Reaction to the Decision

• Southerners

• President Eisenhower

• Calling it Black Monday, they swore to reject
  it.
• A Southern Manifesto was written condemning the
  decision. We regard the decision of the Supreme
  Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of
  judicial power.

• Failed to take a solid moral stance in the case
• Refused to say segregation was morally wrong
• All they are concerned about is to see that
  their sweet little girls are not required to sit
  in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes-
  in conversation with Chief Justice Earl Warren

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Brown II- May 31, 1955

• A cautious approach to implementing desegregation
  was decided upon by the court
• Brown II asked southerners to draw up
  desegregation plans with all deliberate speed,
  which meant no speed at all to those resisting
• By 1960, fewer than 1 of the Souths black
  students went to integrated schools (would take
  7000 years at that rate!)

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Little Rock Nine

• Little Rock had integrated buses, parks,
  libraries etc.
• Nine black students were selected to attend
  Little Rock Central High School
• Gov. Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard- not
  to protect the students, but to keep them from
  entering the building

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2-4-6-8, we aint gonna integrate

• Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the
  decisions of our courts- Eisenhower

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Ruby Bridges- New Orleans 1960
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James MeredithUniversity of Mississippi 1962
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http//www.youtube.com/watch?vOqYDSyV8qW8