Progress In Education (Brown vs Topeka, Little Rock) - The Civil Rights Movement Flashcards
Why was the Brown vs Board of education so important?
- Lots of opposition to integration of schools
- NAACP court case = Brown vs Topeka Board of Education
- Many felt that it should be down to individual states
- Supreme Court Judges in Favour of NAACP
- Schools should be integrated → very significant ruling
Show how the NAACP changed segregation
NAACP - 1952 NAACP takes 5 desegration cases to the supreme court
Argue - NAACP argued that seperate was not equal. Against the 14th Ammendment
Argue - Supreme Court had not yet made a decision. Earl Warren replaces pro- segregation judge, as Chief Justice, December 1952
Change - May 1954, supreme court ruling: “Seperate but equal ‘ had no place in education
Timescale - May 1955, Sepreme Court called for desegregation with all deliberate speed
What were the short term sucesses for Brown?
- Plessy was reversed
- Led to many further legal victories
- Southern border states desegregated schools
- By 1957, 723 schools districts had desegregated, pawing the way for desegregation in other areas of life
What were the failures for Brown?
- Southern Manifesto rejected the Brown decision
- Threats and violence to black children that attempted to integrate into schools
- Some southern states pledged to keep segregation
- White citizens council set up in July 1954 (aimed to preserve segregation)
- KKK - membership grew and protested
- White parent groups formed 1 outside schools
What are the long term effects of the Brown vs Topeka ruling?
Black students - Faced hostility integrating into ‘white’ schools and and lost the good education and support of many good ‘black’ schools, which were closed or integrated
Civil rights - Greater awareness of civil rights issues and encouragement. for further campaigns but white hostility meant membership ot civil rights groups fell (e.g NAACP from 130,000 in 1955 to 80,000 in 1957)
Desegregation legislation - Plessey overturned, could not be used to block desegregation laws and Brown could be used in cases to desegregate other places.
Black teachers - Some lost Jobs when schools were integrated and others working in integrated school faced hostility from white starf, students and parents
Desegregation - The south did desegregate: but integration was patchy and very slow. By 1966, five Deep South states were still entirely segregated
White people - unite people (especiauy in towns and cities) moved out of areas with large black communities ; a new kind of segregation was created
What were the events at Little Rock High School?
School desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas up to 1957 - 75 blacks applied, 25 were selected, only 9 still willing to go after threats of Violence
Actions of Orval Faubus - Dunen the school started on 3 September, Faubus sent 250 state troops to surround the schod to keep the peace’, stopping the black students going in
Daisy Bates (NAACP) - The local NAACP organiser, arranged for them to arrive together the next day
Elizabeth Eckford - Elizabeth missed the message and arrived by ous alone with mobs waiting for her and shouting ‘Lynch her!’ and state troopers not protecting her
What was the publicity on Little Rock High School?
On the 4th of September there were over 250 reporters and photographers over what happened with photographs of Elizabeth and the mob was in newspapers worldwide, the outrage in the US and abroad was enormous ruining USA’s image.
What was President Eisenhower forced to do with the event at Little Rock High School?
As the situation worsened he was forced to act with Eisenhower ordering Faubus to remove the state troops from Little Rock, though the action was so controversial that he went on television to explain himself
What was the outcome of the event at Little Rock High School?
The black students were able to make it into schod although they couldn’+ stops the taunts from students and teachers alike and their hate mail and thrcatening phone calls, at the end of the School year May 1958 - Faubus closed the school
What happened on May 1958 and September 1959?
School year ended in May 1958, the closed for a year before being forced by white parents forced him to open the schools (integrated) in september 1959
Why was Little Rock important?
- Forced President Eisenhower, who would have preferred to do nothing, to take action
- In 1957 Eisenhower introduced the first Civil Rights Act since 1875.It set up a commission to prosecute anybody who tried to deny American citizens their rights
- It attracted world - wide attention and was on television screens across the USA
- When Fauous closed all the schools in Arkansas in september 1958, he was forced to reopen them to black and white students by Supreme Court
When was Brown vs Board of Education,Topeka?
1954
When was Little Rock,Arkansas?
1957
