Education

Brown vs Topeka/Board of Education-1954

Linda Brown was refused entry to the white school as she had to walk several miles to attend her segregated school, whereas the white school was very nearby. Her father asked the NAACP for help. Thurgood Marshall brought it before the Supreme Court. In order to ensure more of a success rate, the NAACP decided to help Brown, as opposed to other potential candidates, as her father was a pastor and she came from a respectable background They only took on cases that they thought they could win.

Earl Warren said that the segregation of schools had a 'detrimental effect' on coloured children (could be argued that he only said this due to Soviet propaganda. He wanted to portray America as free because they were engaged in the Cold War, which, ironically, meant that they were fighting for freedom against Communism, but the USSR simply pointed at America and said that they were being hypocrites)

The Supreme Court ruled that segregation in all schools was illegal.

Results and significance

By ruling that segregation in schools was illegal, the Court implied that all forms of segregation was illegal,

This new ruling overturned the precedence set by Plessy vs Ferguson (Used to back up segregation) and set a new one.

Within a year of the 1954 decision, over 500 schools in the North and Upper South desegregated.

New laws could potentially be produced banning any form of public discrimination.

However, the Deep South were still defiant.

the KKK maintained terror and violence.

March 1956: Southern manifesto produced by 96 Southern Congressmen denouncing desegregation.

White councils threatened business loss.

Little Rock, Arkansas-1957

Nine African-American students attempted to go to the school in Arkansas. National Guardsmen prevented them from entering as did the governor Faubus.

President Eisenhower put the Arkansas National Guard under federal command and dispatched a thousand stormtroopers. One of the Nine became the first black student to graduate from Little Rock High.

The even was taken up by the media and opened people's eyes to racial injustice as lynching was threatened quite openly.