2004_0223_Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Peter Thein Honorable Mention Taught by Michelle Irwin Parkview Center School People, Not Courts, End Segregation Ixi 1954, the United States Supreme Court ended state and local laws that allowed or required segregation of schools based on race. What the Supreme Court could not do was �ch�ally end school segregation. People, not courts, must end school segregation. The Fourteenth Amendinent to the United States Constitution (which was ratified by Congress in 1868) declared that all citizens of the United States are entitled to equal protection under the laws. For almost ninety years even the Supreme Court thought this did not prohibit separate public schools for black children and white children. Almost thirty years after the Fourteenth A�i�.endi��ent was ratified, the Supreme Court said, in Plessy v. Fe,�gusoj�, that separate facilities for black people and white people were acceptable as long as they were "equal." A very different Supreme Court rejected the idea of "separate but equal" in the Brow>>� >>, 13oui•cl of Education decision in 1954. We often tlu nk of this as a case based on school segregation in the South. In fact, this decision was based on a number of court cases brought on behalf of black children in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginiaat�d Delaware who were not allowed to attend public schools in their conunuiuties because the law either required or permitted students who were black and white to attend separate public schools. The 1954 Supreme Court said a state law tl��t allowed or required separate public scliools violated the equal protection clause because "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The Sup��e111e Court declared that t10 law could require or allow separate schools for black cluldren and white cl�ldren. What the Supreme Coui�t could not do was � r��3€� schools integrated. Tlu•ee years after the �r��.;�� decision, ��4�.a nine blacl: students tried to attend a public lugh school in Little Rock, it ]e:d to a cl�sh between the Governor of Arkansas, a federal judge, thousands of angry citirer�s �i n�l