Education

• What school was like for Black Americans

  • The Jim Crow laws, confirmed by the Supreme Court in the 1890s, said that black and white Americans could be kept ‘separate but equal’
  • In education, this meant that as long as they could both go to a school, they were equal
  • In reality, this meant that schools for black Americans had much larger classes with far fewer resources
  • In states with segregated schools (which were mostly in the South), black American children were not allowed to go to a school that was attended by white children, even if it was near to where they lived.
• Events of Brown V Topeka

  • A significant court case that challenged segregated education involved a black American girl called Linda Brown, who lived in Topeka, in the state of Kansas
  • In 1951, her parents asked for her to attend the nearest school to where they lived
  • The local school board said she could not go as the school was for white Americans only
  • Linda’s parents asked the NAACP for help and its lawyers took the court case all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington, DC
  • They argued that segregated education was damaging to black American children.
• Outcome of Brown V Topeka

  • In May 1954, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, ruled unanimously, that segregation in education went against the US Constitution
  • This was an important victory for education, and it also gave civil rights activists an argument to use against discrimination in other settings
• Aftermath of Brown V Topeka - trying to desegregate schools

  • There was a lot of resistance to implementing the judgement in the southern states.
  • Sometimes politicians passed laws to try to stop it, and sometimes people used violence and intimidation.
  • By 1957, while there were 300,000 black children in desegregated schools, there were still 2.4 million in segregated schools.
  • By the 1970s, there were still black American children in segregated schools
• Events of the Little Rock Nine

  • Nine black American children tried to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957
  • This was part of a campaign organised by Daisy Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP group. Before this, no black students had attended the school. 
  • Governor Orval Faubus ordered state troopers to stop these students from attending the school, saying that he was doing this for their own safety
  • When the Little Rock Nine turned up for school, they were faced by an angry crowd of white Americans and state troopers trying to stop them
• President Dwight D Eisenhower's response to events of the Little Rock Nine

  • President Dwight D Eisenhower to take a more active role in supporting school integration 
  • President Eisenhower tried to persuade Governor Faubus to back down and allow the students to attend the school
  • After riots escalated outside the school, Eisenhower sent in 1,200 federal troops to protect the children. They were finally able to attend the school
  • The troops stayed for a year but the Little Rock Nine still faced abuse inside and outside the school. (E.g. Elizabeth Eckford and Minnijean Brown, who was expelled)
• How the Supreme Court got involved in the events of the Little Rock Nine

  • In 1958, Governor Faubus shut all schools in Arkansas to avoid having to desegregate them
  • The Supreme Court ordered him to reopen and desegregate all schools , although this did not begin until 1961. Schools in the state were not fully integrated until the 1970s 
  • This was important as this was the first time a president had intervened in the desegregation of schools
  • The events also showed that the president and Supreme Court could overrule civil rights decisions made by states if they wanted to 
• Events that happened between James Meredith and Ole Miss

  • Desegregation of universities took longer than it did in schools
  • In 1962, Ole Miss (a name given to the University of Mississippi) was ordered by the Supreme Court to allow James Meredith, a black American student, to study there
  • The state governor, Ross Barnett, had a law passed that barred any convicted criminals from attending university in the state - Meredith had a conviction for falsely registering as a voter.
• President John F Kennedy's response to help James Meredith attend the university of Mississippi 


  • President John F Kennedy sent 300 US Marshals to protect Meredith after white American students at Ole Miss rioted
  • Later, 2,000 federal troops were sent in after there was further rioting
  • Meredith was protected by 300 state troopers until he graduated with a political science degree
• How James Meredith paved the way for other Black Americans to attend university

  • Black American students faced similar problems at universities in other southern states
  • However, they were able to attend and study as the law and the federal government, through the example of James Meredith, were proven to be supportive of their attendance