Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education

Mother talks to daughter after segregation 

is declared unconstitutional in schools

Brown versus Board of Education is a monumental case that helped change the educational system. When looking at this court case, the Plessy v. Ferguson case has to be observed in order to understand the background circumstances that were occurring. In 1892, Homer Plessy refused to give his seat on a train up to a white man. Since he was required by law to do so, he was arrested and eventually he took his case to the Supreme Court. They ruled against him and allowed for Jim Crow laws and discrimination to continue to occur. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson allowed for separate but equal public schools and facilities.

In 1950, Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his African American daughter into a white school. His daughter, Linda Brown, and her sister had to walk through a dangerous railroad yard to get the bus to take them to an all black school. The white school was closer to their house but the federal district dismissed Brown’s claim and said that the two schools were equal enough to fit under the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine. Brown appealed his case to the Supreme Court, and this case along with Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County, Boiling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel became known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education in 1952. All five of the cases were based on the constitutionality of state sponsored segregation in public schools.

Thurgood Marshall, who was the chief counsel of the NAACP, argued in this case that the separate schools were unequal and violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. He stated that black children felt inferior to white children due to segregated schools. There were also studies done that showed that black girls had low racial self esteem. One of these studies, the Doll Test, was used as evidence in the Supreme Court case. The Doll Test tested African American children between 3 years old and 7 years old by showing them four dolls with different races. The children had to identify the races of each and say which one they preferred. Many of the black children chose the white doll and gave it positive traits. Some said the black dolls were bad and said that the white ones looked the most like them. Lawyers argued that this showed the inferiority that the black children felt due to the segregated schools.

One of the dolls used in the Doll Test

Most of the justices on the Supreme Court wanted to reverse Plessy and thought segregation was unconstitutional, but they each had different reasons for this. When there still was not a solution by June 1953, the case was decided to be reheard in December of 1953. In the meantime, Earl Warren replaced Fred Vinson as chief justice after Vinson passed away. Warren was able to bring the justices together to declare segregation in education unconstitutional. They said the fourteenth amendment guarantees equal education for everyone. They also stated that education is the basis of a person’s life and if this right was denied, people were less likely to succeed. The Supreme Court asked the state attorney generals to submit plans for how to get rid of segregation. In the second hearing of the Brown case, or Brown II, in May of 1955, the Supreme Court said desegregation was to proceed with “all deliberate speed”. This did not immediately solve the problems because this statement is vague and hard to enforce. However, the case of Brown v. Board of Education greatly impacted education and the role that segregation played in society.

Works Cited

"Brown v. Board of Education." Uscourts.gov. U.S. Courts, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

History.com Staff. "Brown v. Board of Education." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

"Kenneth and Mamie Clark Doll." National Park Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

"Landmark Cases of the U.S. Supreme Court." Brown v. Board of Education | Www.streetlaw.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

McBride, Alex. "Brown v. Board of Education." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, Dec. 2006. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

"NAACP Legal Defense Fund : Defend, Educate, Empower." Brown at 60: The Doll Test | NAACP LDF. Legal Defense and Educational Fund, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

Reading Response: Recitatif

For Thursday's reading response, you can choose one of the poems or the short story to focus on: "The Enactment"; "Fannie (of Fannie Lou Hamer)"; "Red Velvet," or the short story, "Recitatif." If you choose one of the poems, think about what we discussed in class on Tuesday and find a "foothold," or element to focus on to help you draw out possible meanings in the poem. If you choose to respond to "Recitatif," you might think about the role of memory or about the purpose of the character of Maggie in the story (lots of other possibilities, too, but we will be discussing memory and Maggie in class if you're looking for an angle.)

Responses are due by 9:45, Thursday, April 20.

Emmet Till 

Emmett Louise Till was born on July 25, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois. He was raised in a middle class black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. His neighborhood was full of black-owned businesses therefore he was used to living in a place where black people could thrive. Emmett was described as being responsible, funny, and an infectiously high-spirited child, and was also known for having a speech impediment. When he was 14 years old his great uncle Moses Wright came from Mississippi to visit Emmett’s family. When his uncle left with Emmett’s cousin Emmett wanted to go with them to spend time with his cousins and begged his mother to allow him to go to Mississippi. Reluctantly his mother agreed and this decision would forever be remembered.

Three days after Emmett had arrived in Mississippi on August 24, 1955 he and a group of teenage boys entered Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market to buy some drinks after being outside all day. The woman working at the cash register, Carolyn Bryant claimed Emmett Till flirted with her by asking for a date and grabbed her hand. She was the wife Roy Bryant who was the owner of the store, and she told her husband about what had happened. Four days after the boys entered the store, at approximately 2:30 am on August 28, 1955 Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till from Moses Wright’s house. Then Till was beaten brutally, dragged to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot in the head, tied with barbed wire to a large metal fan and his body was shoved into the water. Till’s uncle Moses reported his disappearance to the local authorities and three days later Till’s body was pulled out from the river. His face was so disfigured that he was unrecognizable, and the only way his uncle Moses was able to identify Till was by the ring on his finger that was engraved with his father’s initials “L.T.” After the body was found it was shipped to Chicago. There his mother, Mamie Till decided to have an open-casket funeral and her reasoning was to, “Let the world see what has happened, because there is no way I could describe this. And I needed somebody to help me tell what it was like.”

The kidnapping and murder trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam began on September 19, 1955 and the final verdict was reached on September 23, 1995. Regardless of the tremendous amount of evidence and pleas for justice, the panel of all white male jurors acquitted Bryant and Milam of all charges. The deliberation lasted for 67 minutes. Four months later in January 1956 the two men Bryant and Milam confessed to Look magazine in exchange for $4,000, that they did in fact commit the crime. Because of double jeopardy laws the men were protected and could not be sent to trial again, so they freely told the entire story.

The death of Emmett Till was crucial in triggering the American Civil Rights Movement. Although Mamie Till could never get over the pain of losing her son, she did understand that what had happened to Emmett Till was able to open the eyes of America to the racial hatred that was tormenting the country. Also, by opening their eyes it allowed for a substantial protest movement for racial equality and justice. Only 100 days after the murder of Till, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus. This then caused the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott. Nine years after the Boycott, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act then outlawed various forms of racial discrimination and segregation. Then one year later in 1965 the Voting Rights Act was passed which outlawed discriminatory voting practices.

The trail of Emmett Till is still not completely over. As of 2007 Carolyn Bryant admitted to lying about what she said Till had said/ done to her while in the market. She confessed to Timothy Tyson who then wrote about it in his book entitled, The Blood of Emmett Till. This does not change the outcome of the trail because the damage has already been done. However, it does exhibit a modern testament to the racist and unfair legal system that has long refused to give African- American people fair treatment and judgment.

Works Cited:

“Emmett Till.” Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 27 Jan. 2017. Web. 15 Apr.   2017.

“The death of Emmett Till.” History.com A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 15 Apr.   2017.

“Emmett Till.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Apr. 2017. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.

“Emmett Till Murder.” Famous Trials. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.

USATODAY. “What’s next for Emmett Till’s accuser after she lied.” YouTube. YouTube, 08 Feb.         2017. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

Reading Response: James Baldwin and Emmett Till

For Tuesday's reading response, you can choose to focus on the essays or on two of the poems. Think about how the works are in dialogue with one another. How are they responding to a similar idea or using a similar strategy to convey their point? Where do they diverge or rely on contrasting strategies? What do you learn by reading them together? This response is due by class time on Tuesday, April 18.

Jim Crow

“Segregation not only harms one physically but injures them spiritually.  It scars the soul.  It is a system which forever stares the segregated in the face saying ‘You are less. You are not equal to.’” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Jim Crow Laws was a form of racial caste system in America that existed from 1877 to 1965.  The laws segregated the blacks from society forced a lesser race ideology.  The history of Jim Crow began years before the laws were actually put in place in 1877.  Before the Civil War, there were not segregation laws in place because society did not need them.    There were laws in place against freed slaves at that time, however this only impacted where they can be employed, but the extent of the laws did not become strict until after 1877.  Slaves were able to work side-by-side with whites as long as they were subservient.  The idea of Jim Crow was from the 1830’s minstrel skit by Thomas Dartmouth, AKA “Daddy Rice”.  The skit consisted of Dartmouth dressing up as a black, disabled slave.  He used African American Vernacular English and was in black face, where he would sing a song that was racially offensive.

After the Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1, 1863, the Reconstruction Era began in the United States of America.  Many African-American slaves were freed, and society moved forward with making these freed slaves U.S citizens.  Laws were put in place to protect these freedoms, and at this time black men could vote, serve in juries and run for office.  Because there were no laws that separated schools at this time, schools were fully integrated.  Laws were in place to protect the citizenship and rights of African Americans, however eventually these rights would slowly be taken away.  Beginning in the 1870’s, southern democrats slowly began to take control of the southern legislature.  They pushed a white supremacist ideology.  White supremacist groups such as the white league and the red coats tried to intimidate from voting and ran republicans out of town.  By 1877, white democrats gained control of almost every southern state, who legislated laws known of Jim Crow Laws, which officially began the Jim Crow era.

In the early 1880’s, black people were still on office, however from the 1880’s through the early 1910’s, laws were put in place to suppress black voters even further.  The democrats of the south passed laws that restricted who could vote, by implementing a voting tax, as well as literacy and comprehensive tests.  These tests were very extensive, and impossible to pass.  This reduced the number of black voters in southern states drastically.  White people living in poverty were also reduced, however they were eligible for a grandfather clause to keep their right to vote, while black people did not.  The statistics showed that around the south, blacks were suppressed from voting, and in Louisiana in 1910, only 0.5% of black men were registered to vote at that time.  Those who were registered to vote were threatened, beat and often times murdered in order to keep them from voting.

Clip from Selma (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YRUUFYeOPI

The laws that were put in place were solely for the purpose of keeping the races separated.  These laws limited intermarriage, integration of schools, bathrooms, restaurants, hospitals and other common areas.  The laws varied form state to state, other states having stricter laws than others.  The penalty for these laws also ranged from state to state, while most were viewed as a misdemeanor. 

•       Jim Crow Laws (by State)

The Jim Crow Laws were in place from 1877-1965.  In 1955, the Montgomery Bus Protest was a protest started by the arrest of Rosa Parks. The outrage of this incident led to a massive boycott, which ultimately ended in the integration of the buses.  It also inspired other civil rights groups to fight to reverse some of the segregated laws.  Eventually in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act of 1964, which ended public discrimination and segregation.  In 1965 the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended barriers to voting for federal, state and local elections, marking the end of the Jim Crow era after 88 years. 

            Although Jim Crow is officially reversed in these southern states, a systematic racial system is still in place affected many African Americans in the United States, particularly African American men.  The term New Jim Crow was a term coined by legal scholar and civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  In her book, she discusses how the war on drugs and mass incarceration is a tool used to racially control society, and continues the ability to practice racial discrimination in the United States.  It is a reminder that although Jim Crow has ended, the ideology has not died, and there is still a strong prejudice that is still relevant in our country.

Sources:

•http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/examples/homepage.htm

•Lasner, Lynn Fabian.  “Fighting Jim Crow.” Humanities, vol. 23, no 5.  October 2002.

•“Reconstruction and the Rise of Jim Crow.” The African-American Experience, Primary Source Media, 1999.  American Journey.

•Packard, Jerrald M.  American Nightmare: The History of Jim Crow.  New York: St Martin’s Press.  2002.  Ebsco.

•Cook-lynn, Elizabeth.  “Mass Incarceration is the new Racism.” Diversity Studies collection.

•http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/links/misclink/examples/homepage.htm