Transcript The New Frontier and the Great Society

HOLT
The New Frontier and the Great Society
Section 3: Voices of Dissent
Objectives:
 How did the Brown decision affect school segregation
and expose conflict over segregation?
 How was the Montgomery bus boycott a major
turning point in the civil rights movement?
 What challenges did supporters of the Brown decision
face?
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Section 3: Voices of Dissent
Brown v. The Topeka Board of Education: Supreme Court
Decision (1954)
 Constitutional Issue: Does the idea of separating races violate
the 14th Amendment?
 Jim Crow Laws in the south separate races in public facilities.
Institutionalized segregation.
 Fourteenth Amendment: pledges equal protection under the law… The
law must protect all equally (Only one classification of citizenship)
 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decided that separation did not necessarily
mean unequal
 A number of people appealed the power that states
had to segregate students based on race
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The Fourteenth Amendment
 Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States and of the State
wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce
any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of
the laws.
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Brown v. the Board:The argument of the
appellee (The Board of Education)
 States have control over education (Education is a
state rather than federal issue)
 The Supreme Court in Plessy held that separating
people based on race did not violate 14th
Amendment rights to equal protection, it merely
separates
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Brown v the Board of Education:
Argument of the appellant (Linda
Brown)
 Segregation created a situation where AfricanAmerican citizens are denied equal protection.
 Black schools were consistently inferior (hence
unequal) to white schools
 The appellants presented evidence that segregation
violated the 14th Amendment because it was
inherently unequal
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Headline from Brown Decision
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The Decision: States no longer had the
right to maintains segregated schools
We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of
"separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others
similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by
reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal
protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
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Southern Resistance
 In 1955, the court ruled that desegregation should
be ordered at all deliberate speed
 U.S. senators and congressmen signed the
Southern Manifesto in protest to the Brown
decision
 Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia called for a
program of “massive resistance”- use of state laws
to block the implementation of integration
 Communities would close schools rather than
integrate
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Key quotes form the Southern Manifesto
 "The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school
cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute
naked power for established law."
 "The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does
the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding
the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no
intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the
States."
 "This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the
Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally
affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and
Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort
by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion
where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding."
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Brown’s First Major Battle: Little Rock: 1957
 Federal Court ordered schools in Little Rock
to begin integration- accept 9 students
 Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out
National Guard to block their entrance
 Federal Court order forces Faubus to remove
troops
 Angry mobs blocked their entrance
 President Eisenhower calls the 101st Airborne
and federalizes the Arkansas National Guard to
protect students
 Faubus closed the schools in Little Rock next
year. Re-opened under court order in 1959
 Resistance to Brown continues in deep south
through the 1960’s
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjNqrQBUno&featur
e=related Memoirs from Little Rock
Voices of Dissent
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Section 3: Voices of Dissent
The Montgomery bus boycott (1955)
 A plan to challenge the segregated bus system in Montgomery Alabama was
organized by black community
 Rosa Parks (NAACP member) chosen to spark a boycott of Montgomery bus company (1
December 1955)
 Blacks made up a majority of customers
 A boycott organized to economically challenge segregation
 A court order would end segregation on busses by 1956
 established Martin Luther King, Jr. as a major civil rights leader- non-violent
resistance to racial injustice
 Non-violent civil disobedience based on examples of David Henry Thoreau and Mohandas
Gandhi
 helped people believe they could stand up to power- birth of the SCLC
 A Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first significant civil rights legislation since
Reconstruction
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What feelings generated this artifacts?
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How would events of the 1950’s inspire a more broad based and grassroots movement to challenge the traditions and established power of
segregation?
 Hope rather than hopelessness
 Anger rather than fear
 Collective (organized) rather than individual
 For civil rights organizers to succeed in
overcoming the power of racial identity in
dividing and discriminating against Americans,
what would they need to do?
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Discuss in small groups
 How did the Brown decision affect school
segregation and expose conflict over segregation?
 How was the Montgomery bus boycott a major
turning point in the civil rights movement?
 What challenges did supporters of the Brown
decision face?
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