Brown Decision

• What year was the Brown Vs Education Board of Topeka

  1954
• Why was Oliver Brown dissatisfied with the education board of Topeka?

  he couldn't send his daughter to a whites-only school 5 blocks away when the black school was 21 blocks away
• Who supported Oliver Brown in his appeal to the Supreme Court?


  NAACP
• Why were there hopes of success for the Brown case?

  Kansas wasn't a southern state
• Who represented Brown in the Supreme Court?

  Thurgood Marshall
• What was argued in the Brown case to the Supreme Court?

  That segregation was against the 14th Amendment, which granted Citizenship to all born in the US including formally enslaved people 'equal protection under the laws' (1866)
• Why was Chief Justice Earl Warren important?

  He agreed with the argument and said that segregated education is psychologically harmful to Black children even if the facilities were equal
• Ike wasn't happy about the decision
• Why was the Brown decision a triumph for the NAACP?

  it overturned the 'Plessey vs Ferguson' decision and removed all constitutional sanction for racial segregation
• What could the Supreme Court not do for the Brown decision?

  They didn't give a date by which desegregation had to be achieved and said nothing about de facto segregation
• What happened in Brown II in 1955?

  NAACP returned to Supreme Court to obtain ruling that integration be accomplished 'with all deliberate speed'
• What formed in the south as a reaction to Brown II?

  White Citizens' Councils
• Did schools desegregate as they were expected to as a result of the Brown decisions?

  In the peripheral and Urban south desegregation was introduced quickly but in the rural and deep south they actively resisted school integration
• What was signed by Southern politicians to resist the Brown decision?

  Southern Manifesto
• What did Ike refuse to do to enforce the Brown decision?

  refused to use federal power to enforce the Brown decision
• How can we understand Ike's reaction to the Brown case?

  wasn't very happy and stayed silent, was paranoid about popularity as he was raised in Kansas, also doesn't like gov intervention as has a Laissez Faire attitude
• What had know happened to Plessey vs Ferguson?

  basically overturned it and 'separate but equal' no longer stands

  supreme court ruled that separating children in education on the basis of race was unconstitutional
• What did the Brown case prove about the NAACP?

  they were becoming more vocal, powerful and influential

  could achieve change

  liberal - not going to resist change
• What did the Brown decision prove about the Supreme Court?

  they were willing to help and didn't give a date because they knew the South would react badly
• What did the Brown decision prove about Ike?

  By staying silent and not commenting on the matter it proves he is paranoid about his popularity decreasing after the decision
• What did it prove about the South's reaction to the decision?

  Proves they actively resisted the integration of schools and were adamant that they would not abide to the decision as they think their way of like was under attack and feared racial mixing
• What did Brown II prove?

  That the Supreme Court didn't take action immediately as they were trying to keep the south on their side. If they put a date on it then it won't happen or get done. It showed how weak both the decisions were.
• Some historians suggest that the 1954 Brown decision marked the start of the Civil Rights Movement
• What was the Southern Manifesto?

  Political Document declaring the intentions of those who signed it. Published in 1956 and was the South's response to the 1954 Brown decision. Signed by most southern political figures, except a few (101 Dixiecrat Congressmen).
• We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary... to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people. 


  Means the Supreme Court was getting too powerful and the power of individual states is reducing.
• Reasons why the Southern Manifesto was published

  • Southern politicians were angry at the 1954 Brown decision
  • Southerners believed that their schools should be segregated
  • Southerners believed in the 1896 principle of Separate but equal
  • Southerners believed that segregated education complied with the 14th Amendment
  • Southerners didn't like that the power of individual southern states rights was being eroded by the Supreme Court
  • Southerners believed that the Supreme Court was becoming too powerful
  • Southerners didn't like that Northerners with different values were telling the South what to do
  • Southerners believed that individual liberty was being taken away since parents now had no say in who their child went to school with
  • Southerners claimed the Brown decision created tension between blacks and whites since everyone was used to them going to separate schools
• Ike called his decision to make Earl Warren the new Chief Justice "the biggest damn fool mistake I ever made"