Brown v. Board and the Start of the Civil Rights Movement

Let’s back up. Civil Rights Act of 1875 actually banned segregation. This was prior to Reconstruction failing. But, in 1883, the Supreme Court ruled that law unconstitutional. This paved the way for Plessy v. Ferguson, which said “separate but equal” was constitutional, which paved the way for institutional segregation in the South.

Jim Crow Laws Laws that severely limited the rights of African Americans. Blacks could not attend the same churches, schools, streetcars, waiting rooms, elevators…etc as whites.

It’s not just the South During the Great Migrations of African Americans from the South to the North, occurring during both World Wars, African Americans find discrimination in the North as well. Most could only find housing in all-black neighborhoods. White workers resent the new competition for jobs.

WWII starts the Civil Rights movement Due to the large number of white soldiers fighting, many new opportunities opened up for African Americans, Latinos, and women. Those Africa Americans who did serve returned home with a new perspective. Many fought in Europe where they saw that black men and women did not face the same segregation as they did back home. They returned eager to fight for their freedom.

Federal Action FDR passed a presidential directive that prohibited racial discrimination by federal agencies and companies that were engaged in war work.

The NAACP’s strategy This organization was founded in 1909 and worked towards improving the rights of African Americans. During the 1930’s they focused on the unequal education opportunities for Blacks in America. Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the NAACP, brought 32 cases to the Supreme Court that involved segregation. He won 29 of them.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Linda Brown, 8 years old, had been denied entry into an all white elementary school 4 blocks from her house. Instead, she had to walk 21 blocks to the all black elementary school. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, struck down segregation in schooling as an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment.

Now, about that enforcement…… Many states, in the deep south, said they wouldn’t enforce the ruling. This forces the Supreme Court to issue another decision, Brown II, in which they explicitly say that desegregation must be done “with all deliberate speed.” President Eisenhower refused to enforce this policy, because he believed that forcing people to desegregate would never work.

1948, Little Rock, Arkansas In 1957, the Arkansas governor ordered the National Guard to stop 9 African American students who had volunteered to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School. A federal judge had to step in an order the governor to let the students into school.

Eisenhower changes his tune… This forced Eisenhower to get more actively involved in desegregation. He put the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and ordered federal troops into Arkansas. These soldiers oversaw the entrance into the school of these 9 young men and women.

Civil Rights Act of 1957 This clearly spells out that the federal government had authority over the violation of African American rights. This is done to show individual states that the federal government is going to be the Supreme Law of the land in all this.

Montgomery Bus Boycott Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an NAACP officer, took a seat in the front row of the “colored” section of a Montgomery bus. As the bus filled up, the driver ordered Parks and three other African Americans to move to the back of the bus. Rosa Parks refused, and was arrested.

The bus boycott The NAACP acted quickly and organized a boycott of Montgomery busses, led by Martin Luther King. King went down to Montgomery, gave an impassioned speech, and convinced the black community to boycott the busses. The community went to work organizing car pools for those who couldn’t get to work without the bus. Finally, in 1956, the Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation.