Write a paragraph telling the story you think this painting tells. (For example, you might start, “One day in September, as Jane was walking to school,…”)

Norman Rockwell (American, ). The Problem We All Live With, Story illustration for Look, January 14, Oil on canvas. 36 x 58 in. (91.4 x cm). From the permanent collection of the Norman Rockwell Museum. © The Norman Rockwell Estate / Licensed by Norman Rockwell Licensing Company, Niles, Illinois

On November 14, 1960, six year old Ruby Bridges attended William J. Frantz Elementary School in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. It was her first day, as well as New Orleans' court-ordered first day of integrated schools. (

There was an angry mob gathered outside of Frantz Elementary on November 14. … It was a mob of well-dressed, upstanding, housewives, shouting such awful obscenities that audio from the scene had to be masked in television coverage. Ruby had to be escorted … by Federal Marshals. (

A Bit of Legal History Brown v. Board of Education consisted of five combined U.S. District Court cases from across the country that challenged the 'separate but equal' doctrine as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Those five cases were Bolling v. Sharpe (Washington D.C.), Briggs v. Elliott (South Carolina), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, Davis v. Prince Edward County (Virginia), and Gebhart v. Belton (Delaware). All these cases were important to the final outcome of Brown but the Briggs Case is especially significant. It was the first case of the five, beginning in 1949, and it was the only case from the Deep South.

Briggs v. Eliott The South Carolina laws being challenged were: – “Free Public Schools – The General Assembly shall provide for a liberal system of free public schools for all children between the ages of six and twenty-one years…” – “Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race.” – “It shall be unlawful for pupils of one race to attend the schools provided by boards of trustees for persons of another race.”

Briggs v. Elliott The district court ruled in favor of the defendants (that is, to uphold the South Carolina laws and continue segregation) based on the fact that the State promised to alleviate the situation by funding the construction of new schools for African American children across the state. However, Justice Waring disagreed and expressed his reasons passionately in his dissenting opinion. Here are some highlights of his dissenting opinion:

J. Waites Waring's Dissenting Opinion – “Class and caste have, unfortunately, existed through the ages. But, in time, mankind, through evolution and progress, through ethical and religious concepts, through the study of the teachings of the great philosophers and the great religious teachers, including especially the enslavement of body, mind and soul of one human being by another. And so there came about a great awakening” (7).

J. Waites Waring's Dissenting Opinion – “Unfortunately this had not been sufficiently advanced at the time of the adoption of the American Constitution for the institution of slavery to be prohibited” (7). – “The United States then adopted the 13 th, 14 th and 15 th Amendments and it cannot be denied that the basic reason for all of these Amendments to the Constitution was to wipe out completely the institution of slavery and to declare that all citizens in this country should be considered as free, equal and entitled to all of the provisions of citizenship” (8).

J. Waites Waring's Dissenting Opinion – “The whole discussion of race and ancestry has been intermingled with sophistry and prejudice…. For years, there was much talk of blood and taint of blood. Science tells us that there are but four kinds of blood: A, B, AB and O and these are found in Europeans, Asiatics, Africans, Americans and others. And so we need not further consider the irresponsible and baseless references to preservation of “Caucasian blood.” So then, what test are we going to use in opening our school doors and labeling them “white” and “negro”?

J. Waites Waring's Dissenting Opinion – “…segregation in education can never produce equality and that it is an evil that must be eradicated” (19). – “Segregation is per se inequality” (19). – “And if the courts of this land are to render justice under the laws without fear or favor, justice for all men and all kinds of men, the time to do it is now and the place is in the elementary schools where our future citizens learn their first lesson to respect the dignity of the individual in a democracy” (20).

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech (1963) mlkihaveadream.htm mlkihaveadream.htm Your homework for tonight: Read Mr. King’s speech as you listen to a recording of it. Take notes on three parts of his speech that you find particularly persuasive, and analyze what makes those parts so compelling.