Education Integration
Brown V. Board:
Schools were segregated by race in the town of Topeka located in Kansas. Each day and everyday, Linda Brown and her sister had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to the bus stop for the ride to their all-black elementary school. There was a school closer to the Brown's house, but I only for white students were able to attend. Linda Brown and her family believed that the segregated school system violated the 14th Amendment so they decided to take their case to court. The Federal district court decided that segregation in public education was harmful to black children, but because all-black schools and all-white schools had similar buildings, transportation, curricula, and teachers, the segregation was considered "legal". The Browns appealed their case to Supreme Court stating that even if the facilities were similar, segregated schools could never be equal to one another because they were still separating colored students from white students. The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Linda Brown and her family won the case.
Schools were segregated by race in the town of Topeka located in Kansas. Each day and everyday, Linda Brown and her sister had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to the bus stop for the ride to their all-black elementary school. There was a school closer to the Brown's house, but I only for white students were able to attend. Linda Brown and her family believed that the segregated school system violated the 14th Amendment so they decided to take their case to court. The Federal district court decided that segregation in public education was harmful to black children, but because all-black schools and all-white schools had similar buildings, transportation, curricula, and teachers, the segregation was considered "legal". The Browns appealed their case to Supreme Court stating that even if the facilities were similar, segregated schools could never be equal to one another because they were still separating colored students from white students. The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Linda Brown and her family won the case.
Little Rock Nine:
Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled In the Brown v. Board of Education case that separate educational facilities are unequal, nine African American students (Minnijean Brown, Terrance Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls) attempted to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The students labeled themselves as the Little Rock Nine. Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recruited all of these students. As president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Martin Luther King wrote President Dwight D. Eisenhower requesting a swift resolution allowing the students to attend school.
On 4 September 1957, the first day of school at Central High, a white mob gathered in front of the school, and Governor Orval Faubus sent out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering. A team of NAACP lawyers responded, including Thurgood Marshall, won a federal district court injunction to prevent the governor from blocking the students’ entry. With the assistants of police escorts, the students successfully entered the school through a side entrance on 23 September 1957. Fearing escalating mob violence, however, the students were rushed home soon afterward.
Three years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled In the Brown v. Board of Education case that separate educational facilities are unequal, nine African American students (Minnijean Brown, Terrance Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls) attempted to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The students labeled themselves as the Little Rock Nine. Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recruited all of these students. As president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, Martin Luther King wrote President Dwight D. Eisenhower requesting a swift resolution allowing the students to attend school.
On 4 September 1957, the first day of school at Central High, a white mob gathered in front of the school, and Governor Orval Faubus sent out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the black students from entering. A team of NAACP lawyers responded, including Thurgood Marshall, won a federal district court injunction to prevent the governor from blocking the students’ entry. With the assistants of police escorts, the students successfully entered the school through a side entrance on 23 September 1957. Fearing escalating mob violence, however, the students were rushed home soon afterward.
James Meredith and Ole Miss:
James Meredith sought to legally become the first black person to attend the University of Mississippi, the duty of upholding the federal law allowing him to do so fell upon the shoulders of 127 deputy marshals from all over the country who risked their lives to make his dream a reality.
A bold challenge Race relations in the United States were plenty tumultuous in 1962. When Meredith set his sights on becoming the first black person to attend Ole Miss He was seen as a leader. According to one biographer, Meredith was dissatisfied with race relations in the South, and in a calculated move he applied for admission.
However, the university, citing administrative technicalities, refused his application numerous times over the course of the next several months. This prompted the would-be student to write a letter to Thurgood Marshall, then head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund.
In the letter, Meredith wrote that he knew the “probable difficulties involved in such a move as I am undertaking and I am fully prepared to pursue it all the way.” Marshall and his organization backed Meredith wholeheartedly. In his book, “An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi,” author William Doyle stated that the NAACP’s backing was a key component in Meredith’s eventual success. Doyle also noted that two other factors were equally important: John F. Kennedy, seen as the first president to support civil rights, took office in January 1961; and the Brown ruling was still the official law of the land.
James Meredith sought to legally become the first black person to attend the University of Mississippi, the duty of upholding the federal law allowing him to do so fell upon the shoulders of 127 deputy marshals from all over the country who risked their lives to make his dream a reality.
A bold challenge Race relations in the United States were plenty tumultuous in 1962. When Meredith set his sights on becoming the first black person to attend Ole Miss He was seen as a leader. According to one biographer, Meredith was dissatisfied with race relations in the South, and in a calculated move he applied for admission.
However, the university, citing administrative technicalities, refused his application numerous times over the course of the next several months. This prompted the would-be student to write a letter to Thurgood Marshall, then head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund.
In the letter, Meredith wrote that he knew the “probable difficulties involved in such a move as I am undertaking and I am fully prepared to pursue it all the way.” Marshall and his organization backed Meredith wholeheartedly. In his book, “An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi,” author William Doyle stated that the NAACP’s backing was a key component in Meredith’s eventual success. Doyle also noted that two other factors were equally important: John F. Kennedy, seen as the first president to support civil rights, took office in January 1961; and the Brown ruling was still the official law of the land.
Busing In Boston:
In 1965, a decade after the desegregation of southern schools, school segregation in Boston is a natural by-product of segregated neighborhoods. African American schools lacked permanent teachers, basic furniture and supplies, and even books. The NAACP helps black parents bring their complaints to the Boston School Committee, whose chair, Louise Day Hicks, claims the schools are not inferior. After years of struggle, when community strategies to improve their children's education fail, black parents take the school committee to court. On June 21, 1974, federal district court judge W. Arthur Garrity rules in the parents' favor, saying the school committee has consciously maintained two separate school systems. Garrity orders students to be bused city-wide to integrate the schools.
Boston residents anticipate trouble. Less than a mile apart, the black community of Roxbury and the white community of South Boston (Louise Day Hicks' stronghold) are slated to integrate their schools. City politicians make matters worse by promising white residents they will seek to overturn the decision. Senator Edward Kennedy, once a favorite son of the city's Irish community, is threatened by a mob during a demonstration at the federal building. In September, buses carrying black students are met by white crowds in South Boston, yelling slurs and threatening violence. White parents stage a boycott, pulling their children from the schools. The violence persists inside and outside the schools, and white resistance continues for years. Not until Louise Day Hicks is unseated and a black school committee member is elected in 1977 will the situation start to stabilize.
In 1965, a decade after the desegregation of southern schools, school segregation in Boston is a natural by-product of segregated neighborhoods. African American schools lacked permanent teachers, basic furniture and supplies, and even books. The NAACP helps black parents bring their complaints to the Boston School Committee, whose chair, Louise Day Hicks, claims the schools are not inferior. After years of struggle, when community strategies to improve their children's education fail, black parents take the school committee to court. On June 21, 1974, federal district court judge W. Arthur Garrity rules in the parents' favor, saying the school committee has consciously maintained two separate school systems. Garrity orders students to be bused city-wide to integrate the schools.
Boston residents anticipate trouble. Less than a mile apart, the black community of Roxbury and the white community of South Boston (Louise Day Hicks' stronghold) are slated to integrate their schools. City politicians make matters worse by promising white residents they will seek to overturn the decision. Senator Edward Kennedy, once a favorite son of the city's Irish community, is threatened by a mob during a demonstration at the federal building. In September, buses carrying black students are met by white crowds in South Boston, yelling slurs and threatening violence. White parents stage a boycott, pulling their children from the schools. The violence persists inside and outside the schools, and white resistance continues for years. Not until Louise Day Hicks is unseated and a black school committee member is elected in 1977 will the situation start to stabilize.