Nonetheless, the trial court found that the Jim Crow law school provided a legal education that was equal to that provided by the University of Texas. Before Brown, the Fourteenth Amendment notwithstanding, American law gave its sanction to a patent system of racial inequality. The combination grade school-high school in Claymont served about 400 white students. Chief Justice Earl Warren read the opinion for a unanimous Court. Maryland looked like it might provide fertile ground for such an effort. How did naacp use litigation? The NAACP played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The NAACPs anti-lynching crusade became a central focus for the group during its early decades. Those wartime experiences left an indelible impression on the young Houston, creating, as he indicated, a determination to strike back at racial oppression: "The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. The new school had only one alumnus. They then made a series of commands. By the time an appellate court could hear the appeal, the legislature had appropriated $100,000 toward the establishment of a law school at the newly established Texas State University for Negroes in Houston. Though the facilities for black elementary children were older, they were the rough equivalent of their white counterparts' facilities. Segregation in graduate and professional education was as common in the South as segregation in elementary and secondary schools. The judge was the same one who had held that the vastly inferior Prairie View school was equal. Log in for more information. Louisiana State University had been ordered by a three-judge federal panel to admit black students to the law school, an order only three months later summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court. By August 1950, the University of Delaware was ordered to admit blacks to its undergraduate campus because of the "woefully inferior" opportunities otherwise available to them. The jurists would be caught in a difficult analytical box from which there could be no escape. Chinese Which of the following is a Latino rights group? What strategy did the NAACP use to end racial segregation? Hill and Robinson met with the striking students and were impressed by their resolve. Both the tangible and the intangible factors were inferior. He concluded that efforts to equalize facilities between black and white schools should continue, but he also recognized (as Margold did) that victories in such cases could cause problems for the long-term goal of eliminating segregation. It was the first major case for a young attorney who would succeed Charles Hamilton Houston as NAACP special counselThurgood Marshall. Redding was a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School and was admitted to practice in Delaware in 1929. Anti-Lynching Legislation Renewed. Few in the modern behavioral or biological sciences support the kind of scientific racism that was heartily championed at the best universities a century ago. arguing legal cases in court Read this quotation. But the new NAACP position did not require the sacrifice of the strategy that had brought victory in Sweatt and the other cases. Private schools in southern communities that originally started out as "Seg Academies," institutions founded to allow white students to avoid integrated public schools, now routinely enroll black students. The Murray court noted that if Murray were barred from the University of Maryland's law school, he would miss the benefits of a state law school education, specifically gaining a familiarity with the courts of the state in which he intended to practice law. Students were not only exposed to the theoretical possibility that law could shape social change, but also had the opportunity to actually work on cases that were changing the law and the society as well. The decision would become a catalyst for profound changes in legal norms. Past winners have included George Washington Carver, Will Smith, Mary J. Blige, Alex Haley, Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey. In the NAACPs early decades, its anti-lynching campaign was central to its agenda. Former NAACP Branch Secretary Rosa Parks' refusal to yield her seat to a white man sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement. The 1954 decision provided a foundation for later court decisions and legislative enactments that established a new set of norms concerning law and race. Segregation continues. The court did not condemn the scholarship program as a matter of law. In Korematsu, the Court stated that while "all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect [t]hat is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional." The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. The NAACP played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. It has lessened to be sure, but African Americans remain the most segregated of the racial and ethnic groups in the United States, with the exception of Indians on reservations. In 1967, he became the first Black Supreme Court justice. The organization received some criticism for its strategy of working through the judicial system and lawmakers to achieve its goals, rather than focusing on more direct methods of protest favored by other national civil rights groups. (back to article), A law review is a student-edited journal that publishes articles by law professors, practicing lawyers, and students; a moot courtroom is a space for practicing oral arguments and holding mock trials. The importance of Brown lay in its setting the nation's law on the path of rejecting the kind of racial exclusion that had made African Americans a people apart since before the nation's founding. He did get through. Sixty percent of Claymont's faculty held master's degrees, compared with 40 percent at Howard. Between 1936 and 1940, the NAACP had notable success in Maryland with lowsuits and negotiated settlements designed to equalize the pay of Negro and white teachers. When Oliver Brown became the lead plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka and the state of Kansas had a schizophrenic attitude about its Negro population. NAACP units throughout the country. These lawsuits were combined into the landmark Brown v. It was formed in New York City by white and Black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against Black Americans around the country. The Brown decision was momentous, but with respect to the issues of race and racial discrimination, even with respect to the issue of school segregation, the decision was hardly definitive. These kinds of arguments could be challenged, of course, but they would involve the NAACP in long, often hard to prove, fact-specific litigation. What was important was not so much the trial court decision as the record that was produced in the trial. The South Carolina and Kansas cases would also be joined by two separate cases that were filed in Delaware: Gebbart et al. Marshall had traditionally been cautious. The group is also celebrated for its Image Awards, given to those who excel in the arts and media, Theater Awards for the dramatic arts and Spingarn Medals for outstanding work by Black leaders in any field. Using a combination of tactics including legal challenges, demonstrations and economic boycotts, the NAACP played an important role in helping end segregation in the United States. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Even if he had received a scholarship, the court found that Murray would still be at a significant disadvantage because of the added costs of commuting or relocating. The attorneys agreed to represent the students not in a case to equalize the facilities, but in a case to desegregate the schools. Instead Margold urged an attack on "the constitutional validity of southern school systems as they exist and are administered at the present time [italics added]." Two Richmond lawyers, Oliver Hill and Spottswood Robinson, served in that capacity. The often profound socioeconomic inequalities between blacks and whites can be traced to slavery, segregation, and long-term patterns of exclusion. Watch acclaimed Black History documentaries on HISTORY Vault. After founding the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1940, Marshall became the key strategist in the effort to end racial segregation, in particular meticulously challenging Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court-sanctioned legal doctrine that called for separate but equal structures for white and Black people. Also, it was easier to make the case that discrimination was occurring in professional schools. The mayor and businesses were eager to end the pickets and boycotts that had hurt the bottom line for months. American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO. What strategy did naacp use to change segregation laws? Marshall graduated from Lincoln University in 1930 and applied to University of Maryland Law School he was denied admission because the school was still segregated at that time. Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg were the NAACP's point men for Brown. This rejection of outright racial bigotry even occurs in some quite unexpected precincts in modern America. Moreover, the liberalization of racial attitudes that started becoming part of American culture before the Second World War, a liberalization that provided an important, perhaps critical backdrop to the Brown decision, has continued. There was no need. In the voting rights arena, the NAACP ended Oklahoma's restrictive time limit on when Negroes could register to vote and Texas's all-white primary. After founding the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1940, Marshall became the key strategist in the effort to end racial segregation, in particular meticulously challenging Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court-sanctioned legal doctrine that called for separate but equal structures for white and Black people. Comments There are no comments. The trial court record also contained important evidence showing the qualitative, intangible differences between the two schools. Maryland was willing to provide a state-supported legal education for Murray, but not in Maryland and not at the state university. Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland, to William Marshall, railroad porter, who later worked on the staff of Gibson Island Club, a white-only country club and Norma Williams, a school teacher. It was, as lead counsel Thurgood Marshall stated, "an apology to Negroes for denying them their constitutional rights to attend the University of Texas," and, it should be added, not a particularly good one at that. The percentage of black children born out of wedlock approaches 70 percent. An attempt to get some good cases and set some decent precedents with regard to professional schools? It would be a phase in which the champions of civil rights would continue the struggle for equal rights in the courts and in other venues. The average white schoolteacher earned two-thirds more than the average black one; and in contrast to its treatment of white children, the school board could not be troubled to provide a single bus for the transportation of black children. This grandfather clause enabled illiterate whites to avoid taking the literacy test while discriminating against illiterate Black people, whose ancestors werent afforded the right to votedespite the 15th Amendmentby requiring them to pass a test in order to vote. During this era, the NAACP also successfully lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, barring racial discrimination in voting. Thurgood Marshall was an influential leader of the civil rights movement whose tremendous legacylives on in the pursuit of racial justice. American attitudes toward race had changed since Plessy in 1896, and, in key areas, NAACP attorneys were striking blows against racial discrimination and gaining valuable legal experience along the way. If that was done, it would be too easy for a peculiar set of facts, a shrewdly litigated defense case, or a clever and obstinate judge to thwart the NAACP's efforts. A victory against a state's single law school or medical school would reverberate across the state. The Legal Strategy That Brought Down "Separate but Equal" by Toppling School Segregation, By Robert J. Cottrol, Raymond T. Diamond, and Leland B. Ware, Paraprofessionals & school-related personnel, Standing united to protect immigrant rights, DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), Safe and welcoming public schools for all, AFT resources for organizing and back to school programs. This made it clear that equalizing facilities would not remedy the harm that the black students were suffering. It could also offer the courts the alternative argument that even if the courts did not agree that segregation was inherently unconstitutional, it was nonetheless unconstitutional in actual practice. The first was to apply the Supreme Court's new understanding of inherent inequality to elementary and secondary education. The group also has pushed for the removal of Confederate flags and statues from public property. An additional important point should be made. At the dawn of the 21st century, nearly half of the black population still lives in communities that are 90 percent or more black. But it did order Donald Murray admitted to the University of Maryland's law school. Job opportunities were the primary focus of the National Urban League, which was established in 1910. (1952) and Gebbart v. Bulah (1952). The American Federation of Teachers is a union of professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. , a multidisciplinary center within the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. What is clear is that the terrain would have been much bumpier and the playing field an awful lot less level without the efforts of those men and women who developed the strategy, argued the case, and changed history in Brown v. Board of Education. There would be even fewer African Americans eligible for admission. Perhaps, but the physical facilities were substantially equal, and besides the new building for the white school could help explain the differences in per capita expenditures for white and black students. By any concrete measure, the law school at the Texas State University for Negroes was a laughable substitute for the one at the University of Texas. U.S. House of Representatives. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. The political opposition would be intense, perhaps fatal. Professional schools offered a more tempting target: The NAACP was dealing with total exclusion; the state provided a law school or a medical school, but only for whites. The historically white University of Tennessee also admitted black students to previously segregated programs, bringing the total of southern states doing so to six. Shortly after Sweatt, Marshall, 43 other attorneys, and 14 branch and local NAACP presidents convened to develop the next phase of the legal strategy. The Court then traced the evolution of the separate but equal doctrine from Plessy through McLaurin (a case decided shortly before Sweatt in which the Court ruled that segregation within a desegregated institution, such as having blacks relegated to the back of a classroom, interfered with the educational process). But the case was important for another reason as well. Early in its fight for equality, the NAACP used the federal courts to challenge disenfranchisement and residential segregation. The But because the tangible facilities were not equal, Texas could not restrict Negroes to the Jim Crow school. However Brown supporters and black leaders such as T.R.M. These facts probably helped influence the Court's decision. In an interview published in 1992 in the American Bar Association Journal, Marshall wrote that Charlie Houston insisted that we be social engineers rather than lawyers, a mantra that he upheld and personified. It is not hard to find. Using a combination of tactics including legal challenges, demonstrations and economic boycotts, the NAACP played an important role in helping end segregation in the United States. By now it was February 1948, and Heman Sweatt's fight to pursue a legal education at the University of Texas had gone on two years. Du Bois, Ida B. Furthermore, because of the rapid growth in the city's black population during World War II, housing conditions in poor communities were deplorable, and black schools were inferior to white schools. The Racial History Of The Grandfather Clause. NPR. But if Brown proclaimed that that idea was unconstitutional, the decision hardly ended racial discrimination, even state-sponsored discrimination. The NAACP works to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes. The students were mature. By 1952, the number had grown to twelve. The appellate opinion went on to consider the question of intangible differences between a law school education at Howard and one at the University of Maryland. The case bearing the name by which the school desegregation cases are remembered began in 1948 when the Topeka, Kan., branch of the NAACP petitioned the local school board to desegregate the public schools. And the state did not mandate segregation in elementary schools, but for localities above 15,000 in population, the state specifically allowed school segregation as an option. For a short time afterward, he taught in the English department at Howard University. Large numbers of white children attended the public schools. Five of the seven movie theaters were relegated to whites only, and a sixth was for blacks; the seventh allowed both races, but blacks were consigned to the balcony. Founded in 1909, it was at the center of nearly every battle for the rights and dignity of African Americans in the twentieth century. Marshall founded LDF in 1940 and served as its first Director-Counsel. If the tangible measures of inequality revealed stark differences in resources between the two institutions, there were harder to measure, intangible factors that also marked the black schools inferiority. In one of the tests, the Clarks used four dollstwo brown, two white. It also won a case challenging unequal pay in Virginia. Some 10,000 people in New York City participated in a 1917 NAACP-organized silent march to protest lynchings and other violence against Black people. The NAACP also argued that racial segregation did not meet the more exacting standard that had been suggested by two cases decided by the Supreme Court during the Second World War. While these cases did not end segregation in Virginia schools, they allowed NAACP lawyers to gain more experience litigating cases, and also marked a . In addition, black teachers who acted as plaintiffs in salary equalization suits ran serious risk of being fireda particularly severe risk given the desperate scarcity of jobs in America in the 1930s.*. After all, after nearly half a century, the equal side of separate but equal was finally coming into prominence. Death Row USA: Death Penalty Cases and Statistics by State. At the same time, it was difficult for judges to break with long-standing social traditions and legal precedent. The NAACP or National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909 and is Americas oldest and largest civil rights organization. Given the events that led up to Browntrials lasting several days in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and the District of Columbia; testimony presented by dozens of witnesses; and several days of intense arguments in the Supreme Court over a two-year periodthe opinion in Brown is remarkable in its brevity and simplicity. The Court saw significant differences between the University of Texas and the Texas State University for Negroes in the number of faculty, the breadth and depth of course offerings, the size of the student body, the size and scope of the library, and the availability of cocurricular offerings. 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