Separate But Equal

By: Nikia N. DavisLearn More Teach MoreWHMS Grade 8

Challenging Segregation

• Despite the dangers many Afro-Americans took courageous steps to challenge Segregation.

• In 1950, the parents of a young Afro-American girl, Linda Brown, took a step when they decided to send their daughter to an all white school near their home in Topeka, Kansas.

• School officials turned her away, but they continued to fight.

NAACP• Lawyers for the NAACP fought for

their rights.• Thurgood Marshall, the lead

attorney for the NAACP, wanted to assure the plaintiffs that they would have the best defense, despite previous rulings.

• Thurgood Marshall hired the best team to assist him with this case.

• He prepared for his arguments before the United States Supreme Court.

• This case brought world wide attention.

• The answer for the case lied within the Fourteenth Amendment of The United States Constitution.

The United States Supreme Court

The Doll Test

• Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP completed many types of experiments to prove the effects that separate educational facilities had on Afro-American students.

• The most well known test was the “Doll Test”

• With this test students were asked to choose the doll that was treated the best, between a black and white doll the majority of the students chose the white doll.

Would Earl Warren Prevail ?

• President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1953.

• Warren had been a popular Republican Governor in California.

• Eisenhower expected him to act as a conservative judge.

• However, to Eisenhower disappointment, Warren was more liberal.

• Warren proved to be an effective leader for the court.

• Warren united the Supreme Court

A United Court

• Chief Justice Warren, wanted a unanimous decision amongst the court to show a united Supreme Court.

• The Courts unanimous opinion would send a strong message that school segregation would send a strong message that school segregation was unquestionably unconstitutional.

Victorious!!!!• In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled

unanimously that Separate public schools were not equal, and unconstitutional

• The NAACP had won a major milestone that would change the course of history.

• Some communities continued to ignore the ruling and maintained separate facilities.

• The Supreme court issued another ruling in 1955 stating that states needed to integrate “with all deliberate speed”.

• Unfortunately, many black students still would not attend an integrated school system.

Integration• As a result of the

ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, children begin to attend schools that were integrated

• Some schools closed down, to prevent integration.

Short Stories of Personal accounts of the Brown vs. Board decision

•'I Survived, Though I Can't Say I Was Inspired to Learn': Ms. Pamela Hollie. http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/Approved_Letters/555-HOLLIE-OH.html

•I Was the Last Reluctant Holdout' by: Ms. Rosalie Stewart Detch. http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/Approved_Letters/381-Detch-WV.html

•'We Were Just All Kids Together' by: Ms. Janice Brown, Asheville, North Carolinahttp://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/Approved_Letters/761-BROWN-NC.html

•Timeline of Civil rights concentrate on the time frame of 1954http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/history.html

Thurgood Marshall

• Thurgood Marshall went on to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

References

• Kenneth B. Clark.The Genesis of Racial Identification and Preferences in Negro Children, 1940.K. B. Clark Papers, Manuscript Division. (9-15 .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• The Little Rock Nine, ca 1957-60.Copyprint. NAACP Collection, Prints and Photographs Division.Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-119154 (9-18b) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• Thurgood Marshall to the NAACP, Tuskegee Institute, Research Department.November 17, 1941. NAACP Collection, Manuscript Division. (8-16) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• John Vachon. [Segregated facilities].Manchester, Georgia, 1938.Copyprint. .<http://memory.loc.gov>• Three lawyers confer at the Supreme Court, 1953. Gelatin silver print.

New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division (98) .<http://memory.loc.gov>• Marjory Collins. Reading lesson in African American elementary school in Washington, D.C. , 1942. Gelatin silver

print. FSA-OWI Photograph Collection• U. S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1954 Term. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, Law Library

(57B) .<http://memory.loc.gov>• Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs (Charles E. Bledsoe, Charles Scott, Robert L. Carter, Jack

Greenberg, and Thurgood Marshall) June 1951. Page 2 NAACP Records, Manuscript Division (54) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• Ike with John W. Davis at the Herald Trib Forum 10/21, 1952. Photograph. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division (73A) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• Time magazine, September 19, 1955. Cover. General Collections (115)Courtesy of Time-Life Pictures, Getty Images

• Thomas J. O'Halloran. School integration, Barnard School, Washington, D.C., 1955. Gelatin silver print. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, Prints and Photographs Division (202) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• Earl Warren to members of the Court, May 7, 1954. Typed memorandum. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division (80) .<http://memory.loc.gov>

• Harold H. Burton to Earl Warren, May 17, 1954. Holograph letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division (82) .http://memory.loc.gov

• Rance Allen, Miracle Worker, Savoy Records