Plessy V. Ferguson's Quit Against The Board Of Education

While slavery had ended, the lives of people pre-1950 were still determined largely by the color of their skin. The Supreme Court ruling Plessy v. Ferguson had upheld their fate years earlier, and its message rang that the two races would be “separate but equal,” though that sentiment was far from the reality (1). Often times, blacks were relegated to poor educational standards, facilities, and faculty. These factors culminated into substandard educational systems, which doomed blacks to their menial rank, as education allowed for social mobility. This locked blacks into cyclical subservience to the whites, as they would forever be unable to perform high paying jobs with social importance (2). A renewed vigor for equality also began to emerge
Leaders who opposed the segregated system argued that students had a fundamental right to access schools that were near their homes, and that students like Linda Brown were unfairly burdened with having to attend schools for people of their own race, which were often difficult to attend and far away (4). Gaining momentum, the NAACP rallied together a group of plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka in federal district court (5). However important, the black community did not yet feel vindicated in just filing the report, as the Supreme Court had denied such actions in the past. For example, the court of all white men had previously denied constitutional challenges to segregation laws, reinterpreting the Fourteenth Amendment to become increasingly in their favor (6). However, in 1954 the Court voted in favor of Brown, which overturned Plessy as well as de facto segregation that had previously plagued the system (7). Brown mandated that schools “desegregate with all deliberate speed,” which was misinterpreted, and allowed for many segregationists to prolong the period of integration for months or even years. To many blacks, their initial elation would soon come to a halt, as an increased gap for schools to take their sweet time for integration meant more time for whites to instill new
The Board of Education was spotted with initial successes as well as failures. Brown sent hope into the hearts of many who saw the overturning of Plessy as another “Civil War Win” (9), but not without a backlash from conservative, white segregationists. Initial attempts at integration caused intense uproar, a particular example of which is the instance of the “Little Rock Nine.” A group of nine African American school children from Little Rock, Arkansas, the group was allowed to attend the all-white Central High School. While many in the community felt their integration represented the first steps towards the establishment of equal access to education, many whites felt threatened by the onslaught of black students enrolling into the predominantly white schools, and decried the new system. Some of the nine students were chased by raucous crowds and mobs on their way to their first day of school in the now mixed-race school, and others were nearly forced into submission by the thundering chants of housewives attempting to “protect their children” (10). Another example of initial white animosity towards integration is the tale of Affirmative Action. Initially used to create some semblance of racial diversity at larger educational institutions, Affirmative Action was reappropriated by whites after the Brown v. Board of Education’s establishment of the Colorblind Principle. This principle sought to establish racial equity by ensuring that an