Annotated Bibliography Susan Clark

Sixty-two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. The decision from the Plessy v. Ferguson case was lawfully denounced by the Brown v. Board of Education. The Brown case, which was initiated by the members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), served as a stimulus for challenging segregation in all areas of society, especially in public educational institutions. Among the support for the desegregation in school systems, there was a young yet compelling voice who was heard by numerous ears in the rural city in Farmville, Alabama. The virtuous and determined Barbara Johns, who was only a high school student then led her tiny, hovel-like school’s student body and the Farmville community to file a lawsuit in the hope of terminating the inequality in regards to the educational system.

During the court case, Linda became the motivator of racial equality. It is because of her that schools no longer base their judgment of students from racial characteristics. Though Board of Education fought to maintain segregated schools, the act of restricting people based on race was unjust. It took the efforts of a strong girl and her family to bring this controversial issue to the nation. The United States of America was supposed to uphold the idea that “All men are created equal.” Yet, it contradicted itself with its blatantly unequal laws. What kind of equality forces children to be segregated into specific schools? What makes a black American different from a white American besides skin color? By abolishing segregation in schools, future

The Supreme Court planned to desegregate schools. “In September 1957, nine black teenagers hoped to break a racial wall at a school in Little Rock, Arkansas.” (Benson 1). Ernest Green, Minnijean Brown, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls were the students who became the little rock nine. (Lucas 7). Daisy Bates planned to help them get to school. (Lucas 5). “Many White Southern Parents did not want the black students to go school with white children.” (Lucas 13). All the black students were excited for the first day of school. (Lucas 12).

Board of Education(1954) case were Linda Brown, Oliver Brown, Robert Carter, Harold Fatzer, Jack Greenberg, Thurgood Marshall, Frank D. Reeves, Charles Scott, and John Scott("Teaching with documents:," ). Linda lived not to far from a local African American school, but her father had other plans for her and wanted her to go to an all white school so that she could obtain a better education. She was denied the opportunity, so her father teamed up with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP). The 14th Amendment was violated when she was denied the right to go to the all white school(Collins). The 14th Amendment says that a states have to give citizen equal protection under all circumstances. Brown v. Board of Education was not immediately ruled. This case ruling was deliberately thought through and started the trend of desegregating schools years later. In the opinion they believed that segregating the white and black students was the right thing to do. Students would be “offended or intimidated” if they had peers of a different race. That was their way of saying that she should not be allowed to attend the all white school in her community. This case had no had no dissenting opinion. By the case beginning combined to other similar case it was brought to the Supreme Court. They overruled “separate but equal” because of the previous case Plessy v. Ferguson because it violate the 14th amendment("Brown v. Board," 2012).

The Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case is a well-known case that went to the Incomparable Court for racial reasons with the leading body of training. The case was really the name given to five separate cases that were heard by the U.S. Preeminent Court concerning the issue of isolation in state funded schools. These cases were Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (VA.), Boiling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel Every case is distinctive; the principle issue in each was the lawfulness of state-supported isolation in government funded schools (Delinder, 2004).

In the 1954 trial Brown v. Board of Ed the supreme court majority agreed that “separate but equal” was shown to be inherently unequal. When several cases of African American students being denied acceptance into schools arrose, life in public schools changed forever. In a decision that supported by the fourteenth amendment, the U.S. supreme court ruled against the segregation of schools and allowed African Americans to attend white schools.

Floyd B. McKissick Sr. was a veteran of World War II and a pioneer in the integration of higher education in North Carolina. In the summer of 1951, he was admitted to the University of North Carolina, becoming one of the first African American students to attend UNC Law School. While being a key participant in the integration of UNC law school, McKissick also took on leadership positions in Civil Rights activists groups including CORE and NAACP.1 With a strong religious foundation, he established a new type of community called Soul City. Soul City’s intended plan was to open up opportunity for minorities and the poor.2 He wanted to create a better life

I saw racial discrimination. I saw those signs that said white men, colored men. White women, colored women. White waiting. And I didn't like it.”-John Lewis Inspiration was a motivation for making a change with the Civil Rights Movement, between ordinary people and leaders. When John Lewis grew up with segregation, but his uncle had taken him to the North. Buffalo, is where his uncle took him, and it was special because the North was desegregated. When he arrived, he had noticed big beautiful buildings and that there were mix of different cultures together and as neighbors. This point of view that he had gotten from where he lived in the South to where his uncle had taken him in the North changed the way he thought. (March 36 -37) “ Otis Carter…,Arranged the Journey. He had planned it completely for me” “I know now that my Uncle Otis saw something in me that I hadn’t seen yet”said John Lewis ( March 47) “After the trip, home never felt the same, and neither did I. In the fall, I started riding the bus to school which should’ve been fun. But it was just another sad reminder of how different our lives were from those of white children,” states John Lewis. His uncle wasn't the only person who gave John inspiration, it was also Martin Luther King who was John Lewis's role model, and that was John Lewis's motivation. So when John Lewis wrote a letter to Troy State,a school he wanted to go to and integrate but never got a chance

White grew up in Atlanta Georgia and came from a moderately well to do family. He attended Atlanta University. The summer of his senior year White experienced a great amount of racism while interning for Atlanta Standard Life Insurance. Those actions of racism inspired him to call for a chapter of the NAACP at Atlanta University. This did not occur due to lack of organization and participation. Following graduation Walter White worked at Atlanta Standard Life Insurance. He was very successful as an insurance salesman. This did not deter his will for racial civil rights. White, along with other coworkers, were successful in stopping the school board from cutting eighth grade from black schools to finance white school. An Atlanta branch of the NAACP was soon to follow. White’s life from henceforth would greatly evolve from a well-established insurance salesman to a prominent figure in the NAACP and the civil rights movement.

In 1960, six-year old Ruby Bridges became the first African-American to attend an all-white school. Six years before this occurred, Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Until this ruling, black children could only study in black schools, which received less public funding than white schools, had hazardous conditions, and were few and far between.

In 1849 Charles Sumner fought the country’s first school integration case, “Sarah C. Roberts v. The City of Boston.” Sumner represented Sarah Roberts who’s father filed a lawsuit going against the city of Boston. Like Roberts father, many parents in Boston were infuriated and showed bitterness because they were taxed to support schools their children were not allowed to attend. The court ruled that school segregation was neither irrational nor unlawful. The Massachusetts legislature later passed law prohibiting school segregation, in 1855.

The desegregation of public facilities began with the decision of Brown vs Board of Education in 1954, where the Supreme Court of the United States deemed segregation unlawful and unconstitutional. The country was told that desegregation was to take place "with all deliberate speed". This angered the white community. Violent retaliation was the means used to prevent the integration of blacks into various public facilities. In fact, the Autherine Lucy case demonstrated to the entire country that violent mobs could halt integration demanded by a federal court order. However, three years later, the Little Rock Crisis would affirm that if provoked by mobs, the executive

Judging from this information the whites still treated the blacks unfairly and it caused a major conflict between both race. Linda Brown claimed that Topeka's segregation violated the CEPC ( Constitution's Equal Protection Clause) because the city's black and white schools were not equal to each other. Throughout this conference in the end they finally agreed that the school allowed interacial students because it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This was all thanks to the astute leadership of Chief Justice Earl Warren. This had a negative impact on the society in the 1950s and also impacted the American Dream because everyone was not treated fairly and not everyone was given the same rights at the

Ms. Crandall opened one of the first schools for African American girls in 1933 after admitting an African American female into the private academy and refusing to expel her upon the white students’ parent’s outrage. The townspeople were hostile towards Ms. Crandall, but she refused to close the school for African American students despite being scorned and harassed

This was until the Oliver Brown case; Oliver Brown had enough of sending his daughter an unnecessary distance to attend a Black School, when there was a White School nearby. He decided to take his case to the Supreme Court, with the help of his Black lawyer, Thurgood Marshall and the added support of the NAACP group, his case was a success. The fact that his case was lead by a black lawyer was unusual making the success even more celebratory. In 1954, segregated schools were declared to be illegal by the Supreme Court. With the new Supreme Court ruling many states gradually integrated their schools, giving Black Americans a better chance at a substantial education.