ipl-logo

Civil Rights Movement In Schools

668 Words3 Pages

American public schools and colleges were often at the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, but the focus on civil rights in schools began to fade away in the late 1960s as America’s Women’s Rights and Gay Rights Movements, as well as the war in Vietnam, became the hot-button issues of the day. As the 70s carried on, Americans saw the Civil Rights Movement as a moral victory for all- but the Movement was far from over as school students, teachers, and parents were continuing the push to make-up the gap and integrate all races. The development of public schooling in America from 1954 to 1980, as it pertains to racial integration, is important to understand, and can be divided into three …show more content…

Arthur Garrity Jr., through the desegregation of public schools in Chicago This paper will give attention and definition to the causes and effects of the Civil Rights Movement in America’s schools. It will also detail the process of school desegregation, how the definition of ‘integration’ changes over time, and why. 1954-1963 (The Isolation Years) Nine years after the end of World War II, America continues to enjoy economic prosperity and social harmony. In major cities such as Topeka, Kansas, there is a defined line between the races- separated by fountains, diners, buses, and classrooms. America was existing as two different societies: ‘White Society,’ which was a developed, mature culture with a hold on government and almost every desirable job in the nation; ‘Black Society,’ an impoverished, disenfranchised group of people who were kept away from government jobs. After the tumultuous 1940s, the country had somewhat abandoned Isolationism on a foreign scale, but seemed to embrace it more than ever domestically. While most white people felt the separation was a normal, practical way of life, blacks, asians, and hispanics began to push for their right to not be isolated any …show more content…

Racial discrimination furnishes grist for the Communist propaganda mills.(1) On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled on the case: by unanimous decision, which was written and read by Justice Earl Warren: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group...Any language in contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.(2) This decision made school segregation illegal, and would begin the ‘domino effect’ of affirmative action for racial equality in America. Isolation was no longer the way of life in America, especially in its schools, unless its white citizens could do anything about

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Why Busing Forced By Matthew Delmont

    309 Words  | 2 Pages

    During week 12 of class, we were assigned to read three sections of Matthew Delmont's Why Busing Filed. This reading focuses on "busing," which meant that students would be transported to other schools and school districts in order to desegregate schools. This book discusses how "busing" failed due to many white parents opposing it; their values were seen as more important than the rights of black students (Delmont 25). Despite Brown v. Board of Education deeming school segregation unconstitutional in 1954, many schools remained segregated for years. The attention on segregation normally focused on the South.

    Read More

  • Lum V. Rice Case Study

    1170 Words  | 5 Pages

    Notаbly absent from the opinion, as it was in Plessy, is any citаtion to a Supreme Court cаse that considered whether the prаctice of segregating schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Аmendment. It was an open question for the Court. The Court аdmitted that the precedent to which it cited involved discriminаtion between whites and blacks rаther thаn other rаces. However, the Court found no аppreciable difference here—"the decision is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Аmendment."

    Read More

  • Review Of Melba Beals 'Warriors Don' T Cry

    805 Words  | 4 Pages

    Integrating public schools in the south proved to be dangerous but also necessary. Melba, through her memoir, gives a look into what she dealt with. Brown vs Education is hugely important but as it is learned through the book, implementation was another monster. Segregationist represented immaturity and ignorance of the “old south.”

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Martin Luther King Jr And Malcolm X

    904 Words  | 4 Pages

    American citizens during the 1960’s were either completely for desegregation, or completely for segregation. There was no middle ground between the two. The Civil Rights Movement was reinstituted after the Brown vs. Board of Education supreme court case declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. This gave a new, and vigorous offense, to the African American community in their fight for independence. With the conclusion of the Brown vs. Board of Education case, a new, modern era of equal rights initiated and two leaders emerged as the front runners.

    Read More

  • Still Separate, Still Unequal

    650 Words  | 3 Pages

    Still Separate, Still Unequal by Jonathan Kozol I found this article to be very interesting and extremely heartbreaking. Jonathan Kozol paints a vivid and grim picture of predominantly black or Hispanic schools in and around some the largest cities in America. Even in areas where the distribution of races is somewhat equal, Kozol tells us that most white families would rather send their kids by bus to a school where more than half of the students are white. Some schools, like Martin Luther King Jr. high school in New York City, are located purposefully in upper middle class white neighborhoods in hopes to draw in a more diverse selection of children, i.e. more white kids. It seems however, according to Kozol, that this plan not only did not work, but has made it a prime and obvious example of modern segregation in our schools.

    Read More

  • How Did Brown V Board Of Education Influence The Civil Rights Movement

    341 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite that racial segregation in public schools became unconstitutional due to the notable Brown vs. Board of Education court case in 1954, that was merely the beginning of the transformation of American society and acceptance. Subsequently, the new racial movement allowed other minorities to have the courage to defend their civil rights. This was not only a historical moment for minorities, but for women as well. Women, regardless of race, revolted against oppression and traditions. To be politically correct was now discretional.

    Read More

  • Essay On 14th Amendment Of Education

    1003 Words  | 5 Pages

    Before this case, schools were segregated, but deemed “separate, but equal”. This

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Education Of Blacks In The South By James Anderson

    1287 Words  | 6 Pages

    “The most oppressive feature of black secondary education was that southern local and state governments, through maintaining and expanding the benefits of public secondary education for white children, refused to provide public high school facilities for black children.” In sum, Anderson uses this chapter to build a broader argument about the “separate, but equal doctrine” under Plessy v. Ferguson that mandated segregation. More specifically, he situates this argument through case studies in Lynchburg, VA and Little Rock, AR. In the culminating chapter, James Anderson discusses the emergence of historically black universities and black land-grant colleges.

    Read More

  • Brown V. Board Of Education Case Analysis

    759 Words  | 4 Pages

    Decades ago, children of various races could not go to school together in many locations of the United States. School districts could segregate students, legally, into different schools according to the color of their skin. The law said these separate schools had to be equal. Many schools for children that possessed color were of lesser quality than the schools for white students. To have separate schools for the black and white children became a basic rule in southern society.

    Read More

  • African American Civil Rights

    502 Words  | 3 Pages

    In early 1951, many black virginian students protested against the injustice of the “separate but equal” mentality of the law. They revolted against the poor conditions common amongst black schools and the segregated educational system in general. Though the NAACP attempted to convince the protesters to conceal their protests, the relentlessness of the students showed through and the NAACP eventually joined the fight by challenging the system in a series of five cases. The Supreme Court ruled in their favor stating, "segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group.

    Read More

  • The Segregation Of Schools In The 1950's

    733 Words  | 3 Pages

    The segregation of schools based on a students skin color was in place until 1954. On May 17th of that year, during the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, it was declared that separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional. However, before this, the segregation of schools was a common practice throughout the country. In the 1950s there were many differences in the way that black public schools and white public schools were treated with very few similarities. The differences between the black and white schools encouraged racism which made the amount of discrimination against blacks even greater.

    Read More

  • What Is The Integration Of Little Rock Central High's Contribution To The Civil Rights Movement

    506 Words  | 3 Pages

    On September 25th, 1957, in Little Rock, Arkansas, nine courageous African American students entered not only through the doors of Central High, but the doors leading to change. They were strong enough to do this and knew what they were doing and understood it’s worth. The integration of Little Rock Central High was a milestone in the civil rights movement, and it was known across the country and through the world. Though there were likely many different reasons battling in the nine’s head about why or why not to go, they chose to go to the school.

    Read More

  • Warrior Warriors Don T Cry By Melba Patillo Beals

    583 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1950’s through the 1960’s if one was an African-American one would have to walk three to four miles in the scorching heat to go to their all black school. Jim Crow laws were designed to segregate African-Americans and whites. Before, May 17.1954, the court would use the phrase “separate but equal” to justify excluding blacks from white facilities and services. In one Supreme Court case called Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, the Chief Justice and the other eight Associate Justices on the Supreme Court ruled that all U.S. schools had to integrate. Some schools integrated while other schools did not.

    Read More

  • A Brief Note On Pluralistic Society In The United States

    1329 Words  | 6 Pages

    The ruling thus lent high judicial support to racial and ethnic discrimination and led to wider spread of the segregation between Whites and Blacks in the Southern United States. The great oppressive consequence from this was discrimination against African American minority from the socio-political opportunity to share the same facilities with the mainstream Whites, which in most of the cases the separate facilities for African Americans were inferior to those for Whites in actuality. The doctrine of “separate but equal” hence encourages two-tiered pluralism in U.S. as it privileged the non-Hispanic Whites over other racial and ethnic minority

    Read More

  • Essay On Racial Integration Of Schools

    1189 Words  | 5 Pages

    Brittney Foster SOCY 423 UMUC 03/01/2018 Racial integration of schools Racial integration is a situation whereby people of all races come together to achieve a common goal and hence making a unified system. Racial integration of schools is well elaborated in the two articles by Pettigrew and Kirp. These two articles say that combination in the American schools since 1954 has unceremoniously ushered out the Brown versus Board of Education which was a decision made by the Supreme Court. The topic of discussion of these two articles hence is relevant to our course since it gives us the light of how racial desegregation and racial integration shaped America’s history.

    Read More

More about Civil Rights Movement In Schools

Open Document