Brown v. Board of
Education
Separate But Equal?
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.
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.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was a
secret society created in 1865.
Members rode around whipping,
burning and lynching thousands of
African Americans.
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.
“Separate but Equal”
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books were often worn out and outdated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.
Separate but Equal???
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.
Schools lacked electricity, running water and bathrooms.
Heat was a luxury many
schools did not have.
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.

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
The NAACP decided to challenge school
segregation and Thurgood Marshall was selected
as the lawyer to lead the cause.
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.
SUPREME COURT ARGUMENTS
The Segregationists’ Arguments
1. The Constitution did not require white and African American
children to attend the same schools.
2. 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.
4. 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.
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.
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
Reaction to the Decision
Southerners


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.”
President Eisenhower



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
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 South’s
black students went to integrated schools
(would take 7000 years at that rate!)
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
“2-4-6-8, we ain’t gonna integrate”
“Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the
decisions of our courts”- Eisenhower
Ruby Bridges- New Orleans
1960
James Meredith
University of Mississippi 1962
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqYDSyV8qW8