History- Civil rights: School desegregation

• Civil rights


  School desegregation
• African Americans had always resisted and struggled for racial equality and justice
• In the 1950s and 1960s, the activism of several organisations and communities made significant strides towards freedom in access to education
• Segregation laws


  Legal racial segregation
• Plessy v Ferguson case

  Supreme Court ruling that upheld legal racial segregation, with the "separate but equal" doctrine
• Jim Crow laws


  Laws that solidified racist cultures across America
• Segregation was legally protected, so African Americans and activists had to struggle against it
• School desegregation


  Efforts to end segregation in schools
• NAACP


  National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, used litigation to fight for equality
• Brown v Board of Education


  Supreme Court case that ruled "separate but equal had no place in education"
• The Brown v Board of Education ruling only applied to schools, but showed that segregation generally was losing its lawfulness
• After the Brown v Board of Education ruling, only some school boards began to desegregate their schools, and they did so slowly
• This was because the Supreme Court had not given a specific timeframe for desegregation to happen
• Some cities and communities refused to comply with the Brown v Board of Education ruling
• Little Rock crisis, 1957


  Local school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, decided to proceed with school desegregation
• Little Rock crisis


  • Nine African American students attempted to attend Central High School
  • There was a fierce backlash in the local community, with White Citizens' Councils organising against desegregation
  • Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to stop the nine African American students from attending Central High School, which was illegal
  • President Dwight D Eisenhower intervened to ensure the Little Rock Nine could attend Central High School
• Elizabeth Eckford and Minnijean Brown


  Two of the students who attended Central High School in Little Rock