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Oral Arguments in a Landmark Case

Lawrence S. Wrightsman

in Oral Arguments Before the Supreme Court: An Empirical Approach

The case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is used as an example of the role of the oral arguments in deciding a case. A chronology of the case's development is provided. Excerpts from the oral ... More

The case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is used as an example of the role of the oral arguments in deciding a case. A chronology of the case's development is provided. Excerpts from the oral arguments are used to illustrate the thinking of the justices. The impact of the oral arguments on the eventual decision is evaluated.Less

 Mission Runs Aground and Webb's Final Years

Umar F. Abd‐Allah

in A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb

This chapter focuses on the financial difficulties of Webb's mission and his final years. Webb's participation in the Parliament of Religions was the high point of his American Islamic Propaganda. He ... More

This chapter focuses on the financial difficulties of Webb's mission and his final years. Webb's participation in the Parliament of Religions was the high point of his American Islamic Propaganda. He returned to Manhattan for the October 6 grand opening of the mission's new headquarters on Twentieth Street. However, only months later the mission was in financial trouble due to a lack of support from abroad. During his later years, Webb returned to mainstream journalism. He was also elected to the Rutherford Board of Education in 1902 and served a three-year term until 1905. During the same period, from 1903 until 1904, he served simultaneously as Rutherford district clerk. Webb suffered from diabetes for many years and died of the disease at his home on Sunday, October 1, 1916, at the age of seventy.Less

Muscular Democracy: Teachers and the War on Prejudice, 1940–1950

in Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and Race in the Battle for School Equity

This chapter explains the start of the race progress efforts of teachers in 1942 and the ways in which other union policies regarding schools and race were influenced by these efforts. The aftermarth ... More

This chapter explains the start of the race progress efforts of teachers in 1942 and the ways in which other union policies regarding schools and race were influenced by these efforts. The aftermarth of World War II pressurized city teachers into making efforts to address racism in schools. Bibliographies and other materials for teaching black history were created by the Teachers Union and it also petitioned for a black resident to be appointed to the Board of Education. The Teachers Guild emphasized the need for an improvement of vocational education for black students. Both unions developed relationships with Harlem organizations to press the Board of Education to reduce class sizes, hire more teachers, and adopt plans to integrate Harlem schools. The teachers considered their job quality or job satisfaction to be in conflict with teaching minority students.Less

The Battle for Educational Equality in the Postwar New South

Brandon K. Winford

in John Hervey Wheeler, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights

Chapter 3 examines how the legal phase of the civil rights movement came together as World War II ended. It highlights Wheeler’s postwar activism and involvement in the battle for black educational ... More

Chapter 3 examines how the legal phase of the civil rights movement came together as World War II ended. It highlights Wheeler’s postwar activism and involvement in the battle for black educational equality in North Carolina and the South more broadly. He believed education to be one of the most essential ingredients for achieving the expansion of economic rights. This chapter argues that it was during the postwar period that he articulated his economic vision of New South prosperity to bankers in the Tar Heel State. During the world conflict, M&F Bank purchased war bonds, loaned black farmers money for equipment to support the war effort, and then helped returning black war veterans take advantage of the GI Bill through providing home loans. His embrace of legal tactics helped challenge an unjust educational system that effectively stifled black schoolchildren from learning the skills needed to obtain jobs later. This chapter also explores how Wheeler and others argued for immediate school desegregation directly following the Brown decision.Less

Introduction: Desegregation Without Integration

Karolyn Tyson

in Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White after Brown

The Supreme Court's decision in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to eliminate school segregation. Brown promised more than desegregation; the decision also promised integration. ... More

The Supreme Court's decision in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to eliminate school segregation. Brown promised more than desegregation; the decision also promised integration. More than five decades after the decision, however, black students and white students throughout much of the United States still experience separate and unequal schooling. Black-white racial segregation in public schools produced through tracking (and through gifted and magnet programs) remains a problem. Americans simply assume that academic placements reflect students' ability and their (and their parents') choices and attitudes toward school. Linking achievement with whiteness is one consequence of racialized tracking, but there are others that also shape academic achievement and interracial relations. This book takes a look at how institutional practices such as tracking affect black and other students' schooling experiences. Drawing on the narratives and school experiences of some of the more than 200 students studied in twenty-eight schools, it shows how racialized tracking and the messages it conveys affect students' daily life at school, their academic self-perceptions, school-based decisions and actions, and their relationships with peers.Less

“No, Not One”: Georgia’s Massive Resistance and the Crisis at Athens

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a crisis over the desegregation of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens. On the eve of Brown, ... More

This chapter examines how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a crisis over the desegregation of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens. On the eve of Brown, Georgia's ruling party remained controlled by the rural elites and white supremacist politicians composing the faction led by Governor Herman Talmadge. Through their massive resistance, enclave rulers successfully avoided the desegregation of state-supported schools for more than six years while also gaining headway in their repression of the statewide infrastructure of black protest. The chapter first reviews the state of black education in Georgia prior to Brown and the state's attempts to preempt the ruling before discussing how factional conflict affected rulers' development of new institutional defenses to ward off democratization pressures. It then considers the Talmadgeites' attacks on black protest throughout the 1950s and concludes by explaining how Georgia's rulers mishandled the UGA crisis.Less

Confronting School and Residential Segregation during the Cold War

Tracy E. K’Meyer

in Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South: Louisville, Kentucky, 1945-1980

This chapter focuses on educational and housing segregation prevailing during the period. It notes that the U.S. Supreme Court had issued the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ruling, ... More

This chapter focuses on educational and housing segregation prevailing during the period. It notes that the U.S. Supreme Court had issued the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ruling, declaring segregation in public education unconstitutional. It further notes that over the next few years, the Louisville Board of Education, peacefully integrated public schools, achieving national and even international praise. It also reports that in the newly developed suburb of Shively, a violent confrontation over residential segregation brewed where a black family had moved into a home on Rone Court and faced a rising wave of harassment and intimidation. It observes that in both episodes activists relied on interracial cooperation to challenge the racial status quo, and the resulting events garnered national media attention that shaped Louisville's reputation. It notes that the educational and housing segregation were inextricably linked because Louisville tied school attendance to residence.Less

The Rise and Fall of the Desegregation Paradigm

Elizabeth Todd-Breland

in Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s

This chapter analyzes the history of desegregation strategies pursued in Chicago and the processes by which those strategies fell out of favor. The chapter situates these developments within the ... More

This chapter analyzes the history of desegregation strategies pursued in Chicago and the processes by which those strategies fell out of favor. The chapter situates these developments within the broader national context of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and national Civil Rights organizing, while also detailing the work of local organizers like Rosie Simpson. The chapter examines desegregation demonstrations, mass protests, opposition to busing, and citywide committees launched during the 1950s and 1960s by the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, the Chicago Urban League, and local neighborhood groups. Even during this period of intensive organizing for school desegregation, the slow pace of desegregation and lack of commitment by city officials sowed seeds of ambivalence toward desegregation strategies. Disillusioned with the progress of integration, many Black students, parents, educators, and community groups began advocating for alternatives to desegregation, including community control of schools.Less

How Constitutional Theory Found its Soul: The Contributions of Ronald Dworkin

Rebecca L. Brown

in Exploring Law's Empire: The Jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin

Like rain falling to a parched earth, Ronald Dworkin's early work lighted upon a field of constitutional thought desiccated by embarrassment over Brown v. Board of Education. From a distance of a ... More

Like rain falling to a parched earth, Ronald Dworkin's early work lighted upon a field of constitutional thought desiccated by embarrassment over Brown v. Board of Education. From a distance of a half century, it is difficult to appreciate the profound chagrin that had arisen from what now seems a simple judicial declaration of equality. Yet the decision had hurled the world of constitutional theory into decades of existential angst, leading it, temporarily, to lose a grasp on its soul. This chapter explores some ways in which Dworkin's frank discussion of rights as well as his thick notion of equality helped restore optimism and aspiration to the constitutional project when it was in dire need of uplifting. It also traces effects of Dworkin's work in some of the constitutional decisions of the Supreme Court.Less

“Integration with Dignity”: South Carolina Navigates the Clemson Crisis

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a crisis over the desegregation of Clemson College in South Carolina. Prior to Brown, South Carolina's ... More

This chapter examines how the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a crisis over the desegregation of Clemson College in South Carolina. Prior to Brown, South Carolina's rulers sought to preempt the invalidation of state-mandated segregation by improving black education. After the ruling, they launched a strategy of massive resistance: decrying, deterring, and deferring threats to white supremacy in the public sphere. The chapter first reviews the state of black education before Brown and South Carolina's attempts to preempt the decision. It then considers the state's responses to Brown in the 1950s and early 1960s, showing that its leaders attacked both white civil society and black protest organizations. It also describes how the state bolstered its institutional resources to manage democratization pressures and concludes with an assessment of how politicians capitalized on ruling party cohesion and an improved coercive apparatus to navigate the Clemson crisis.Less

Judicial Methodology, Southern School Desegregation, and the Rule of Law

David S. Tatel

in The Embattled Constitution

This chapter examines the path of school desegregation following the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and its 1968 decision holding that states have an affirmative ... More

This chapter examines the path of school desegregation following the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and its 1968 decision holding that states have an affirmative duty to eliminate racial segregation “root and branch.” It also explores the debate about judicial activism by revisiting two school desegregation cases that are related to Brown v. Board of Education, with particular emphasis on their flaws with respect to judicial methodology: Board of Education v. Dowell and Missouri v. Jenkins. After discussing the implications of these cases for constitutional interpretation and the role of the federal courts, the chapter considers two other Supreme Court post-Brown desegregation cases: Green v. County School Board of New Kent County and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. It shows how the Supreme Court, sometimes in disingenuous opinions, has retreated from the desegregation principles on which its 1954 and 1968 rulings were based.Less

Fade to Brown

Steve Estes

in Charleston In Black and White: Race and Power in the South after the Civil Rights Movement

This chapter looks to both the courtroom and the schoolroom to determine why segregation still existed in some American schools half a century after the watershed Brown v. Board of Education decision ... More

This chapter looks to both the courtroom and the schoolroom to determine why segregation still existed in some American schools half a century after the watershed Brown v. Board of Education decision and, more important, what segregation had come to mean. The definition of segregation has changed over time not just for the courts, but for students, teachers, parents, and administrators. Education reform in the wake of Brown resulted in a desegregation paradox, opening up new opportunities for some black students, while limiting academic support for many others. By examining a desegregation case in a small southern city, the chapter reveals that in the decades after Brown, school segregation became only partly about race. It was actually as much, or more, about class.Less

Crusading for Civil Rights

Clarence Taylor

in Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union

This chapter focuses on the New York City Teachers Union's (TU) campaigns to eliminate racist and bigoted textbooks from classrooms, hire more black teachers, and promote Black History Month. By the ... More

This chapter focuses on the New York City Teachers Union's (TU) campaigns to eliminate racist and bigoted textbooks from classrooms, hire more black teachers, and promote Black History Month. By the end of 1950 the TU was in the worst position in its forty-four-year history. Because of the Timone Resolution, it could no longer operate as a collective bargaining agency for New York City public school teachers; it could not represent faculty in grievances or hold meetings in the public school buildings. Moreover, the New York City Board of Education's purge of TU members was ongoing. Despite its inability to represent teachers officially, the TU did not fold in 1950. Its story after 1950 throws into question the argument that popular front unionism in New York City was eradicated during the civil rights struggles of the cold war period. This chapter examines how the TU remade itself into a leading voice in New York City's civil rights movement by challenging the New York City Board of Education's discriminatory policies.Less

“A War for the Minds and Futures of Our Negro and Puerto Rican Children”: The Bibuld Family's Fight to Desegregate Brooklyn's Public Schools

Brian Purnell

in Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings: The Congress of Racial Equality in Brooklyn

Two members of Brooklyn CORE, Elaine and Jerome Bibuld, became frustrated with the inadequate education their son received at his racially segregated public school, and asked Brooklyn CORE to address ... More

Two members of Brooklyn CORE, Elaine and Jerome Bibuld, became frustrated with the inadequate education their son received at his racially segregated public school, and asked Brooklyn CORE to address this issue. The civil rights group mounted a campaign around the Bibuld’s case that called for total desegregation of Brooklyn’s public schools. The Bibuld family, with Brooklyn CORE’s help, staged a sit-in at the Board of Education headquarters, and had their children “sit-in” at a majority white school in another part of the borough. Critics argued that a culture of poverty, not racially segregated schools, explained black students' low academic performance.Less

The Founding and Maintenance of Southern Enclaves, 1890–1940

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter focuses on the founding and maintenance of southern authoritarian enclaves during the period 1890–1940. It interprets the post-1890s South as a set of stable enclaves of authoritarian ... More

This chapter focuses on the founding and maintenance of southern authoritarian enclaves during the period 1890–1940. It interprets the post-1890s South as a set of stable enclaves of authoritarian rule, in contrast to the common view that it was a region of “herrenvolk” democracy—democracy for whites but not for blacks. The chapter first provides an overview of the birth of southern enclaves, tracing the history of the South before the Civil War to Reconstruction and enclave foundings. It then considers the project of southern “democracy,” black politics under enclave rule, and the South's democratization between 1944 and 1972. It also examines interventions that posed challenges to all southern enclaves, including the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, President Harry S. Truman and the National Democratic Party's embrace of racial equality, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.Less

The Battle over School Desegregation

Andrew R. Highsmith

in Demolition Means Progress: Flint, Michigan, and the Fate of the American Metropolis

By the late 1960s, activists in Flint had formally challenged the racial exclusions embedded within community education. However, civil rights groups articulated a critique of de facto segregation ... More

By the late 1960s, activists in Flint had formally challenged the racial exclusions embedded within community education. However, civil rights groups articulated a critique of de facto segregation that proved to be exculpatory for the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the school board. Widespread belief in the myth of de facto segregation resulted in a delayed response to the board’s long record of policy-driven segregation. Indeed, Flint activists waited until 1975 to file their first of two unsuccessful lawsuits against the Flint Board of Education. In the absence of judicial remedies, local activists pinned their hopes for school desegregation on open housing and federal enforcement of the 1964 Civil Right Act, which arrived in 1975. Shortly after the federal government ordered the desegregation of Flint’s schools, the Mott Foundation withdrew its support for community education and shifted its financial resources toward the city’s downtown renewal efforts. Nevertheless, the school board continued to champion the neighborhood schools policies that had kept pupils segregated. In the end, board members agreed only to a weak plan that relied upon magnet schools and other forms of voluntary desegregation. As was the case in other cities, Flint’s voluntary desegregation program proved to be unsuccessful.Less

Disestablishment from Blaine to Everson: Federalism, School Wars, and the Emerging Modern State

Thomas C. Berg

in No Establishment of Religion: America’s Original Contribution to Religious Liberty

The Everson v. Board of Education decision raised two important issues: the historical meaning of the establishment clause and the “incorporation” of the Establishment Clause through the Due Process ... More

The Everson v. Board of Education decision raised two important issues: the historical meaning of the establishment clause and the “incorporation” of the Establishment Clause through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This chapter examines the history leading up to Everson’s decision on these two issues and highlights the inherent tension between the “no-funding” argument (that the state should not support religion financially) and the reality of the modern welfare state (where many activities are supported financially by the state such that denying support to religion becomes discriminatory). Although the original rationale behind the Establishment Clause may have been to deny power to the federal government, by the time of the nineteenth century, “no establishment” was widely understood to have an individual liberty component as well. The Blaine amendment and school-funding controversies of the nineteenth century reveal the underlying inconsistences where states provided financial support for public schools that in fact taught a generic Protestantism while simultaneously restricting funding for Catholic schools as an improper aid to religion.Less

“No Task for the Amateur or Hothead”: Mississippi and the Battle of Oxford

Robert Mickey

in Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972

This chapter examines the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down state-mandated segregation in public education, and its implications for southern authoritarian ... More

This chapter examines the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down state-mandated segregation in public education, and its implications for southern authoritarian enclaves. With the Brown shock, Mississippi's rulers faced their first major black insurgency in decades. A standoff between the state's governors and the White Citizens' Council (WCC) forces led to a stalemate over the development of an effective coercive apparatus, with negative consequences for managing the desegregation crisis at the University of Mississippi. The chapter first considers the state of black education prior to Brown before discussing the crisis, triggered by the university's refusal to admit James Meredith—who was black— and Mississippi's resistance to the decision. It shows how a combination of intraelite dissensus and weak party–state capacities help explain the enclave's navigation of the desegregation crisis at the University of Mississippi.Less