Legal System Challenge

How did the legal system challenge
segregation in education?
Learning Objectives: To explain the impact and significance of legal
challenges to segregation in the education system
Key Terms,
Events, Names:
Brown vs. Topeka.
NAACP, Little
Rock Incident

You are Linda Brown!
In pairs you are either going
to discuss what her daily life
would have been like either
before and after going to a
disaggregated school.
Your teacher will tell you
which perspective you are
looking at.

Civil Rights by the
1950s
LO: To explain the impact
and significance of legal
challenges to segregation in
the education system
• Despite the progress made in Civil Rights for Black
Americans during the war, by the 1950s many still
faced discrimination in the North and lived in
segregation in the South.
• The war had raised awareness of Black civil rights.
Many Black Americans had served in the armed
forces and were often treated better in Europe!
• Many felt society had let them down. The Truman
administration had done little to improve equality.
Membership of campaign groups like the NAACP
and CORE increased, and by 1950 many Black
Americans were actively campaigning for equal
rights.

Plessy v. Ferguson -
1896
• The problem was that despite the fact that Black
People had equal rights under the constitutions
14th Amendment of 1868, states were legally
entitled to pass their own laws.
• This meant that states could pass laws that
discriminated against black people without
asking the central government for permission.
These became known as the ‘Jim Crow’ laws.
• In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that individual
states could impose segregation as long as the
separate schools, hospitals and other services
were ‘separate but equal’. Segregation WAS
constitutional.

Brown v. Topeka Board of
Education - 1954
• In the 1950s, organisations like the NAACP began
campaigning to end segregation by using the legal
system.
• In June 1951, Oliver Brown challenged this by
going to the State court to try and integrate
elementary schools in Topeka, Kansas. He wanted
his daughter Linda to attend the local school. This
was rejected.
• Black segregated schools often received less State
funding, had poor facilities and in-experienced
teachers. They were often in areas hard to travel to.
Linda Brown
Oliver Brown

Topeka, State Capital
of Kansas

Education - 1954
• The NAACP (National Association for the
advancement of coloured people) persuaded
Brown to try again, this time at the Supreme
Court.
• The NAACP lawyers argued that separate
education created ‘low self-esteem and was
psychologically harmful as well as restricting
education achievement for black students.’
• On 17th May 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that
all public school segregation was
unconstitutional. Brown had won and schools
would now have to be integrated.

Different Interpretations:
The ruling Brown v. Board of Education (1954) brought about
progress in the civil rights movements. Create a table that outline
points for and against this statement. Use Source 1 and page 57-
59 in Source 2 to help you with this.

Progress for Civil Rights? Set-back for Civil Rights?
All school segregation was now deemed
unconstitutional.
Ruling did not give a date for integration.
Just with ‘all possible speed’.
All public schools had to become
integrated. 300,000 Black Children
attending formerly segregated schools by
1957
Ruling left the speed of integration up to
individual states, weakening the force of
the law. 2.4 million still in segregated
schools.
Proved that Civil Rights could be achieved
through legal, non-violent means.
Most schools in Southern states ignored
this ruling. 100 Senators + signed
‘Southern Manifesto’ which opposed racial
integration.
Overturned the principle of Plessy v.
Ferguson which meant other public
services should in theory also be
desegregated.
Caused whites in the South to form White
Citizens Councils to stop further
integration and Ku Klux Klan began to re-
emerge.
Education - 1954

Effects of Brown v. Topeka
Board of Education - 1954
• The victory in the Brown case meant that in
theory, all segregated facilities in education
and beyond were illegal and could be
challenged through the courts.
• The case galvanised support amongst the
Black community for peaceful change
through the legal system.
• However, it also strengthened the resolve
of elements opposed to de-segregation within
the White Community. White Citizens
Councils put pressure on politicians to
maintain segregation. The Eisenhower
administration did very little to change this.

Effects of Brown v. Topeka
Board of Education - 1954
• One example of this resistance to
change came in 1956 in Alabama.
• Under a court order obtained by the
NAACP, Autherine Lucy was accepted
as a black student by the University of
Alabama.
• White students rioted and the
university was forced to remove her.
She was forbidden from re-entering the
university and it wasn’t until 1963 that
black students were allowed to enrol!

Little Rock High School -
1957
Read pages 69-71 of the ‘Access to History’
book. Answer these questions:
1. What caused the Little Rock crisis?
2. Why was Eisenhower forced to intervene?
3. What was the impact of the Little Rock Crisis
on the Civil Rights Movement?
4. Research the ‘Little Rock Nine’ and write a
short biography of their achievements (50
words max) for each person.
5. Watch the documentary on the little rock
incident and reflect on what you have seen
in the poetic form.

1957
• School integration was met with
bitter resistance. Arkansas was
one state that had done little to
integrate its schools.
• In 1957, the Supreme Court ordered
the Governor of Arkansas, Orval
Faubus, to let 9 black students
attend a white school in Little Rock.

1957
• Faubus ordered his state troops to prevent
the black students from attending school.
He claimed he could not ‘guarantee their
safety’.
• Faubus only backed down when President
Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect
the students. They stayed for 6 weeks.
• Despite this, Governor Faubus closed
down all Arkansas school the following
year in order to prevent integration! It wasn’t
until 1959 that he was forced to de-
segregate by the Supreme Court.

Effects of the Little Rock
Incident
• By involving the President, Civil
Rights became a major political
issue. The resistance to integration
was going against the rule of law.
• The event also received worldwide
media attention and damaged the
reputation of the USA at the
height of the Cold War.

James Meredith Case
• In June 1962, the Supreme Court
forced the University of Mississippi to
accept James Meredith as a student.
• 320 Federal Marshals were sent to
escort him to university. In what
became known as ‘The Battle of
Oxford’, riots broke out and 2 people
were killed. 166 marshals and 210
demonstrators were wounded.
• 2000 more troops were sent in and 300
stayed for over 3 years until he
received his degree. James Meredith

Effects of the Little Rock
Incident
Governor Wallace of Alabama:
“I am the embodiment of the
sovereignty of this state, and I will be
present to bar the entrance of any
Negro who attempts to enrol at the
university.

• Supreme Court rulings over BROWN in 1954 overturned
the reasoning behind PLESSY V. FERGUSON of 1896 –
segregation was illegal – this increased federal support
for integration
• Encouraged support of Civil Rights Movement and
inspired organisations like NAACP to be more assertive in
their activism
• Yet the successes also increased resistance to change,
especially amongst Congress and local politicians

Legal System Challenge

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