Progress In Education Flashcards
Brown Vs Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
Southerners feared their children might marry those of different races. 1952, NAACP take 5 desegregation cases to supreme court. They argued segregation wasn’t equal, therefore breaking the 14th amendment.
Supreme court hadn’t made a decision when Earl Warren replaces pro-segregation judge as chief justice in December 1952.
Brown vs Topeka ruling
May 1954, supreme court ruling: “separate but equal” had no place in education
May 1955, supreme court called for desegregation “with all deliberate speed”
Positive short term impacts of Brown vs topeka
Reversed Plessy, influenced more desegregation campaigns, some won legal victories. Southern ‘border states’ (those furhest north) and district of columbia desegregated schools in the following years. Very little violence in border states and 723 school districts had been desegregated.
Black monday
…is what the day of the Brown decision was known as in the deep south. Black children and their families who’d desegregated had threats of violence as were NAACP members and anyone who spoke for integration.
Negative short term impacts of Brown vs Topeka
Many school boards lied about planning to desegregate. Governors of some states (including Kansas) didn’t accept desegregation but called for calm while others (Mississippi) made emotional pledges to keep segregation.
Senator Harry F Byrd of Virginia demanded “massive resistance” and said he would close public schoold which tried to desegregate.
Southern manifesto
Extreme white backlash after brown vs topeka.
White Citizen’s council
Used intimidation and violence to preserve segregation.
White parent groups protested outside of schools.
KKK membership grew.
Positive long term consequences of Brown ruling
Plessy couldn’t be used to block desegregation and Brown could be used to help desegregate.
Greater awareness of civil rights movements.
Negative long term consequences of Brown ruling
Black students in ‘white’ schools faced hostillity and lost the good education and support of ‘black’ schools. Some white people moved out of areas with high black populations. Black teachers either lost jobs or faced hostillity from white students, parents and staff. White hostillity made NAACP membership fall from 130,000 in 1955 to 80,000 in 1957.
Little Rock events 1.
School desegregation in Little Rock Arkansas up to 1957. 75 Black people applied, 25 selected, 9 still willing to go after threats of violence.
Little Rock events 2.
Orval Faubus (Arkansas Govenor) sent troops to prevent black students arriving at school.
Daisy Bates (NAACP) arranged for students to arrive at school together but Elizabeth Eckford missed that message and went by herself, facing abuse from a white mob creating publicity;images of her seen worldwide.
Little Rock events 3.
Eisenhower orders Faubus to remove the State troops. He did on 23 September but there was still rioting outside the school. 24th September 1957, Eisenhower sends 1000 Federal troops to control the situationand let the 9 black students into school.
Little Rock events 4.
May 1958. Faubus closes all schools for a year. September 1959 parents force him to open them again
Significance of Little Rock
Forced Eisenhower to take action. Eisenhower, in 1957, introduces first Civil Rights Act since 1875; a commission to prosecute anyone who tried to deny any American citizen their rights.
Attracted worldwide attention. When Faubus closed schools in 1958 he was forced by supreme court to reopen them to black and white students.
Opposition to education progress from white southerners
WCC grew and petitioned and campaigned against desegregation. Also threatened families of children who signed up to desegregate schools and bombed schools.
KKK bombed schools and made threatening phone calls.
