School Integration

SCHOOL INTEGRATION OR desegregation is an issue that has always divided America. In Roberts v. City of Boston (1849), the U.S. Supreme Court found that assigning African-American children to separate schools was reasonable. Plaintiffs in the Roberts case argued that segregated schools created “a feeling of degradation in the blacks and of prejudice and uncharitableness in the whites,” a similar argument that would be heard over 100 years later. Following Reconstruction in the south, the rise of segregation was facilitated by a new wave of discriminatory laws known as Jim Crow. Discrimination was further sanctioned in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), when the Supreme Court announced its “separate but equal” doctrine. Southern states began to pass and enforce more Jim Crow laws.

Eventually, it became clear that “separate was not equal.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) played a pivotal role toward outlawing “separate but equal.” The NAACP first attacked higher education, followed by an attack on segregation in elementary and secondary schools. Although none of the higher education cases overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine, they were the pre-cursor to its reversal.

As lead counsel of the Legal Defense and Education Fund, Thurgood Marshall challenged segregation in Kansas, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia in the consolidated case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the court's unanimous decision on May 17, 1954, which declared separate education facilities were inherently unequal, thus in effect, overturning the Plessy decision. In implementing Brown, the court primarily deferred to the local school districts and left it up to the federal district courts to determine if the state and/or local school districts were in compliance. The public was not in favor of the court's ruling, and massive resistance developed. In 1956, over 100 members of Congress signed a Southern Manifesto, vowing to use all means necessary to reverse Brown. Most school districts made little or no effort to desegregate. In those districts that attempted to integrate, African-American students were met with violence and intimidation. In 1957, when nine black students attempted to integrate Little Rock High School, Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to block their entrance. The students faced an angry mob that harassed and spit upon them. To ease the situation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to federalize the Arkansas National Guard and send in paratroopers.

The New Orleans school crisis played a significant role in the contest for the state's governorship in late 1959 and early 1960, when three hard-core segregationists faced each other in a bitter fight for the Democratic nomination. Jimmy Davis won the governorship and in his inaugural address, he promised to “maintain separate but equal facilities.” Following his inauguration, the Orleans Parish School Board, the governor, federal and state authorities, parents, and various citizen groups became embroiled in a bitter battle over the issue of school desegregation. Ten years after Brown, most of the schools throughout the country remained segregated. Over 300 school desegregation cases had been filed throughout the south. Finally, the court announced that time had run out for compliance. In fear of losing billions of dollars in federal funding, local school districts began to integrate. As a result, the enrollment of African-American students attending integrated schools rose from 1.17 percent in 1964 to 6.01 percent the following year.

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