Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas

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Brown v. Board of EducationTopeka, Kansas

• 50 Years Later
• Celebration or Commemoration?
• Jean L. Konzal

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O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America
to me, And yet I swear this oath America will
be! From Let America Be America Again by
Langston Hughes
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Two Cases

• Brown I May 17, 1954
• Separate But Equal Unconstitutional
• Brown II May 31, 1955
• With All Deliberate Speed

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Clarendon County, S. C.

• Clarendon County, SC
• Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.
• Place Clarendon County in rural South Carolina
• Grievance Starkly unequal, segregated schools
  for black and white children
• Plaintiffs Harold Briggs and 19 other parents in
  the county
• Decision A federal district court ruled against
  the plaintiffs. Their appeal reached the U.S.
  Supreme Court.

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Topeka, Kansas

• Topeka Kansas
• Brown v Board of Education
• Place Topeka, Kansas
• Grievance Segregated elementary schools, and the
  harmful psychological effects of segregation on
  African American children
• Plaintiffs Oliver Brown and 13 other parents
  from Topeka
• Decision A three-judge federal court ruled
  against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs appeal
  reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Prince Edward County, Virginia

• Farmville, Virginia
• Davis v. the School Board of Prince Edward County
  
• Place Rural Farmville, Virginia
• Grievance Overcrowded, underfunded segregated
  schools for African American children
• Plaintiffs Ninth-grader Dorothy Davis and 116
  other students and parents of Farmville
• Decision A federal district court ruled against
  the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs appeal reached
  the U.S. Supreme Court

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Wilmington County, Delaware

• Wilmington County, DE
• Bulah v. Gebhart and Belton v. Gebhart
• (Justice Collins Jacques Seitz)
• Place Wilmington County, Delaware
• Grievance Segregated schools far from the homes
  and neighborhoods of African American children
• Plaintiffs Two mothers of children in the county
  schools, Sarah Bulah and Ethel Belton, and seven
  other parents in the community
• Decision A state court ruled in favor of the
  plaintiffs. An appeal to the state supreme court
  and the U.S. Supreme Court followed.

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Washington, D. C.

• Washington, D. C.
• Bolling v. Sharpe
• Bolling v. Sharpe
• Place Washington, D.C.
• Grievance Black students were segregated in
  overcrowded schools and denied admission to new,
  well-equipped schools for whites only.
• Plaintiffs Twelve-year-old Spottswood Bolling
  and four other students from Washington, D.C.
• Decision A federal districtscourt judge ruled
  against the plaintiffs, but the U.S. Supreme
  Court asked to review the case.

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Historical Context Americas Shame
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Black Code or Jim Crow Laws

• First established in Louisiana 1890
• The Rise and Fall
• of Jim Crow
• http//www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/index.html

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Plessy v Ferguson

• United States Supreme Court Decision
• 1896
• Separate But Equal Public facilities were
  constitutionally permitted

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A Century of Segregation

• Ku Klux Klan 1866
• Enforcement Acts 1870-71
• Civil Rights Act (CRA) 1875
• End of Reconstruction 1977
• CRA declared unconstitutional 1883

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A Century of Segregation

• Atlanta Compromise 1895 Booker T. Washington
• In all things that are purely social we can be
  as separate as the finger yet one as the hand in
  all things essential to mutual progress.
• Williams v Mississippi 1896 Blacks
  disenfranchised

• W.E. Dubois, Souls of Black Folk. 1903 "The
  problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem
  of the color-line."
• Niagara Movement 1905
• NAACP Founded 1909
• Woodrow Wilson 1913
• Moore v Dempsey 1922
• Scottsboro Case 1931
• Graines v Canada 1938 Charles
  Houston/Graduate School

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A Century of Segregation

• March on Washington 1941
• Smith v Allright 1944 Thurgood Marshall The
  right to vote in a primary for the nomination of
  candidates without discrimination by the State,
  like the right to vote in a general election, is
  a right secured by the Constitution."

• Morgan v Virginia 1946 Interstate bus
  segregation outlawed
• Truman supports civil rights--Desegregates the
  military 1948
• /www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/segregation.html

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The Aftermath Southern Manifesto Resistance 1954
-1964
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Farmville, Virginia

• Schools closed 1959-1964
• White children attend Private Academies
• Tuition paid by state
• Black children locked out of schools

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finally. 1969 Alexander v Holmes County
(Mississippi) Board of Education Desegregate
Schools Immediately
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Supreme Court unanimously declared that
desegregated school systems be achieved at once
and operate now and hereafter only unitary
schools. Gary Orfield Dismantling Desegregation
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Keyes v Denver School District No. 1 First
ruling re de jure segregation in North and
West Once intentional segregation was found on
the part of the school board in a portion of a
district, the whole district was presumed to be
illegally segregated. Gary Orfield Dismnantling
Desegregation
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Desegregation in the North

• Resistance in South Boston 1974
• ". . . Assistant principal Bob Jarvis
  knocked at the door to report that police had
  isolated the whites on the staircase, freeing the
  fire stairs on either side. Buses were drawn up
  in the adjacent alley, ready to receive the
  minority students. Detectives would lead them to
  safety. . . .

• Just then, the whites got wind of what was
  happening. 'They're getting away!' they shouted.
  'They're going out the side!' Around the corner
  raced a dozen white boys, heaving stones at the
  buses as they rumbled down the alleys."
• Charlestown HS,
• South Boston

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Miliken v Bradley, 1974 Supreme Court blocked
efforts for interdistrict, city-suburban
desegregation remedies as a means to integrate
racially isolated city schools.Milliken
effectively shut off the option of drawing from
heavily white suburbs in order to integrate city
districts with very large minority populations.
Gary Orfield Dismantling Desegregation
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Miliken v Bradley II, 1977 Supreme Court ruled
that a court could order a state to pay for
educational programs to repair the harm caused by
segregation. Riddick v School board of the City
of Norfolk VA, 1986 Permitted a school district,
once declared unitary, to dismantle its
desegregation plan and return to local government
control. Board of Education of Oklahoma v
Dowell, (1991) The court held that unitary
status released the districts from its
obligation to maintain desegregation. Freeman v
Pitts, (1992) The Court ruled that school
districts could be partially released from their
desegregation. responsibilities even if
integration had not been achieved. Missouri v.
Jenkins (1995) The Supreme Court ruled that
Milliken II equalization remedies should be
limited in time and extent and that school
districts need not show any actual correction of
the education harms of segregation. Gary
Orfield Dismantling Desegregation
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The Legacy The Good and The Bad
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The GoodThe Bad

• Ended legalized separate but equal
• Beginning of the end of Jim Crow laws
• Symbol for other rights movements

• Black teachers and administrators lost their jobs
  by the thousands.
• Black communities lost their schools.
• Black children lost the love and nurturing of
  teachers who believed in their abilities.

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Where Are We Now?
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Where are we now?

• More segregated than in 1954. NJ is the 5th most
  segregated state in the country.
• Achevement gap between Blacks and Whites
• Middle class flight from cities (Black and White)
• We live separately.
• We cant talk about race.
• Some people say racism is a thing of the past.

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Are we better off? Where do we go from here?