Segregation Of Children In Public Schools example essay topic

" 'The Supreme Court decision [on Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas] is the greatest victory for the Negro people since the Emancipation Proclamation,' Harlem's Amsterdam News exclaimed. 'It will alleviate troubles in many other fields. ' The Chicago Defender added, 'this means the beginning of the end of the dual society in American life and the system... of segregation which supports it. ' " Oliver Brown, father of Linda Brown decided that his third grade daughter should not have to walk one mile through a railroad switch yard just to get to the bus stop before she could even get to the separate Negro school for her area.

He attempted to enroll her in the white public school only three blocks from their home, but her enrollment was denied due to her race. The browns believed this was a violation of their rights, and took their case to the courts. This wasn't the first time that blacks found their constitutional rights violated. After the civil war, laws were passed to continue the separation of blacks and whites throughout the southern states, starting with the Jim Crow laws which officially segregated the whites from the black. It wasn't until 1896 in Plessy vs. Ferguson that black people even began to see equality as an option. Nothing changed in the world until 1954 when the historical ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education that anything changed.

Until then, all stores, restaurants, schools and public places were deemed 'separate but equal' through the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling in 1896. Many cases just like the Brown vs. Board of Education were taken to the Supreme Court together in a class action suite. The world changed when nine justices made the decision to deem segregation in public schools unconstitutional. After the Civil War, white southerners had to figure out ways to continue feeling superior to their former slaves. Anxious to regain power over former slaves, southerners created the Black Codes of 1865.

These codes were different from state to state, but most held similar restrictions. If blacks were unemployed, they could be arrested and charged with vagrancy. White Southerners believed blacks were to only work as agricultural laborers so the laws also restricted their hours of labor, duties, and behavior. Additionally, the codes prevented the raising of their own crops by black people. They were prohibited from entering towns without permission.

"Local ordinances in Louisiana made it almost impossible for blacks to live within the towns or cities. Residency was only possible if a white employer agreed to take responsibility for his employee's conduct". Such codes made it possible for segregation to continue and racial tensions to grow. Shortly after the Black Codes, the Jim Crow laws were enacted completely prohibiting the co-existence of blacks and whites. Blacks could not enter white hospitals, nor could black children attend the same schools, or drink out of the same water fountains as white children. These laws took the Black Codes of 1865 to another level, making complete segregation a real possibility Following the Black Codes and the Jim Crow Laws, further decisions by the Supreme Court encouraged segregation and even helped make it an official reality.

After Reconstruction came to an end in 1890, a thirty-year old shoemaker from New Orleans, Louisiana who was 1/8th black, yet was considered black by the state of Louisiana, took matters into his own hands and bought a first class ticket on the train. He was challenging the new Separate Car Act that called for blacks to sit in a separate cart from the whites. He was arrested for refusing to move to the colored car. The argument was that Plessey's civil rights had been violated by asking him to move to the colored car. In 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson case was reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Plessy with an eight person majority. The decision provided for the expansion of "separate but equal" to aspects of daily life.

"Schools, public facilities, restaurants, hotels, theaters, public transportation, etc. adopted the "separate but equal" policy to segregate African Americans away from Whites and in most cases, make the best facilities inaccessible to [them]". The "separate but equal" idea was not overturned until 1954 with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. With the late 1940's and early 1950's, came three powerful voices fighting for change race relations in America. Approximately 900,000 young black men had recently fought a war for freedom and democracy, refused to return to the Jim Crow south, and became very vocal about wanting equal rights. Additionally, increasing support from liberals like Harry Truman and Gunner Myrdal as well as the activism of Thurgood Marshall led the legal side of the campaign for equal rights. One young black American corporal said "I spent four years in the Army to free a bunch of Dutchmen and Frenchmen, and I'm hanged if I'm going to let the Alabama version of the Germans kick me around when I get home.

No sirree e-bob! I went into the Army a nigger; I'm comin' out a man". The Membership in the NAACP, jumped from 50,000 in 1940 to 450,000 in 1946 with over 14,000 branches by 1948. Eleven states and twenty-eight cities enacted laws that established Fair Employment Practices Commissions and eighteen states approved laws calling for the end of racial discrimination in public places. While legislation all over the north was ending racial discrimination in most ways, the south was much slower to act. President Truman felt that the United States needed to practice what it preached, especially as the leader of the Free World in the brewing Cold War.

He ordered the desegregation of the armed forces, the end of discrimination in federal hiring practices, asked congress to outlaw poll taxes, establish a permanent FEP C at the national level, and asked to make lynching a federal offence. Congress did not pass his requests, but it was a step in the right direction. These legal actions made it possible for Oliver Brown to fight for his daughters civil rights. After being denied admission into the Sumner School because of her race, Linda Brown's father, Oliver, took the matter to the NAACP. Joined with four other discrimination hearings, Thurgood Marshall led an all star defense team to the Supreme Court to argue the unconstitutionality of segregation within the schools. They argued their case, saying that state-imposed segregation was inherently discriminatory and therefore a denial of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

They maintained that segregation created feelings of inferiority among black children and therefore even though these schools were supposedly separate but equal, they would never be equal as long as there was the feeling of inferiority created by segregation. They sighted evidence from Professor Kenneth B. Clark and wife Mamie Clark's study that placed identical dolls save the skin color, one black and one white, in front of black children. When questioned by the prosecution, Clark explained his study. He focused mainly on the elementary group where he presented two dolls that were exactly alike except for color. He asked them questions in a specific order.

He asked them to show him the doll they liked best, the doll that is nice, the doll that looks bad, and then give me the doll that looks like a white child, give me the doll that is a colored childe, give me the doll that looks like a Negro doll, and finally give me the doll that looks like you. The prosecution continued their questioning and asked for his findings, "I found that of the children between the ages of six and nine whom I tested, which were a total of sixteen in number, that ten of those children chose the white doll as their preference, the doll which they liked best. Ten of them also chose the white doll as a 'nice' doll... Eleven of these sixteen children chose the brown doll as the doll which looked 'bad'. This is consistent with previous results which we have obtained testing over three hundred children, and we interpret it to mean that the Negro child accepts as early as six, seven, or eight the negative stereotypes about his own group... these children... like other human being who are subjected to an obviously inferior status in the society in which they live, have been definitely harmed in their development of their personalities, that the signs of instability in their personalities are clear, and I think that every psychologist would accept and interpret these signs as such". After hearing his testimony, and the testimony of others, it was in the hands of nine Supreme Court Justices.

The justices were in absolutely no hurry to be seen making such a large decision as to desegregate public schools in the south, so they postponed their decision and asked to hear the case over again in six months. Six months after they had first heard the case, the nine justices were ready to hear the case again. Things had changed over the course of six months, Dwight D. Eisenhower had moved into the white house and the Cold War and McCarthyism continued to be explosive issues within the United States. More importantly, Chief Justice Vinson died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-three. There were many who believed that the Chief justice had mishandled the many school discrimination cases. His replacement was from California with typically very liberal views and ideas.

With his help, the Supreme Court became a more harmonious and purposeful group than they'd been in quite some time. The rehearing found Marshall and his fellow attorneys well prepared to prove that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to prevent racial segregation in schools. The defense argued that with 2,800 black pupils to the 300 white ones in the county, you would have to have twenty-seven African-American pupils and 3 white pupils in each classroom. The court looked to Lee Rankin, the assistant Attorney General at the time, to figure out what to do if the Court demanded desegregation. Rankin explained his idea saying that the matters should be turned over to the district courts that would have one year to carry out the decision of the Supreme Court with deliberate speed. Only one judge seemed like he might vote to keep segregation, but after three months of talking and working towards a unanimous decision of desegregation of all public schools.

On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Warren read his decision on the case of Brown versus the Topeka board of education. He talked about the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, saying that they were unclear and research to clarify the matter was inconclusive. He spoke of the importance of public education and how the importance had steadily increased since the Fourteenth Amendment had been written. Finally he spoke of the opinion of the court, saying that segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprived the children of equal educational opportunities.

"To separate them [black children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone". His final paragraph explained that the Court would set aside time to hear district court opinions on the manner in which the south should comply with the ruling. He also made it quite clear that his decision applied to all states, not just the districts involved in the five cases. "The Brown decision initiated educational and social reform throughout the United States and was a catalyst in launching the modern Civil Rights movement.

Bringing about change in the years since the Brown case continues to be difficult, but the Brown vs. Board of Education victory brought this country one step closer to living up to its democratic ideas". The decision led the Court to a vastly different constitutional position than seen in previous years, enhancing the position of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. While many were pleased with the decision of the court, there was strong resistance to the decision by many other people. President Dwight D Eisenhower refused to "endorse the Brown ruling", and he also would not express "approbation nor disapproval" of the ruling. As one can expect, there was a strong resistance in the Southern School systems. The resistance led to such incidents as the Little Rock, Arkansas school crisis, which leads to the 101st airborne division intervening to protect nine young African-Americans who enrolled in the all white Central High School.

Integration spread slowly and spread only with the threat of loss of federal funds for noncompliance. It took many years before the full integration of black students and white students in the public schools. In fact, many parents of white children chose to send them to private schools instead of allowing their children to attend school with the black children. Violence and name calling was prevalent throughout the south while integration of the schools began, but the result is obvious. The children that started elementary school in an integrated school had less animosity towards the other races and the tensions in the schools were much less than the tensions outside the school.

The decision also led the way for the civil-rights movement of the fifties and sixties. Brown vs. Board of Education was not the only case heard about the unconstitutionality of segregated public schools, but it is the one that gets the most publicity. After the problems seen with the Jim Crow laws and Plessey vs. Ferguson, a victory of the magnitude that Brown vs. Board of Education provided led the way for civil rights movements throughout the south. Because of the decision of nine justices of the Supreme Court, the term 'separate but equal' was eliminated when it came to schools, and opened the door for integration of restaurants and all public places.

Bibliography

African-American History News Letter. "The Black Codes of 1865".
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Beggs, Gordon. The American University Law Review. 'Novel Expert evidence in federal civil rights litigation". 1995.
Brown V. Board of Education. "About the Case". web Accessed April 8, 2005.
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Patterson, James T. Brown vs. Board of Education a civil Rights Milestone and it's Troubled Legacy. Oxford University Press. New York 2001.
1-3 Robinson, Susan. Gibbs Magazine. "A Day in Black History: Plessy vs. Ferguson". web Copyright 2005 by Mirror-Gibbs Publications.
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The Struggle for Black Equality. Harvard Sitkoff: 1993.