Brown vs. Board of Education (1954)

Which historian sees the Brown decision as the start of the Civil Rights Movement? - Answer- Harvard Sitkoff. What was the role of the NAACP in Brown? - Answer- Brown was the result of a culmination of a series of court victories against racial discrimination for the NAACP. Brown consisted of five different school desegregation cases. The NAACP drew on psychological studies to show that segregated education had a detrimental impact on the development of black children. What was the name of the Chief Justice? - Answer- Chief Justice Earl Warren. Warren was appointed by Republican President Eisenhower () a few months before. Warren worked hard to ensure unanimity for the decision because he recognised the strength of Southern white support for Jim Crow. What was the ruling of Brown? - Answer- "Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of the state solely on the basis of race... denies the Negro children the equal protection of laws guaranteed by the 14th amendment." What was "Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896)? - Answer- A Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation was allowed as long as facilities available to whites and African-Americans were equal. What was the main issue with Brown I? - Answer- Brown I failed to involve anything regarding the implementation of school segregation. It took the Supreme Court a year to decide how to implement Brown. How many states had school segregation laws at the time of the Brown decision? - Answer- 17 Southern and border states had school segregation laws, and 4 more allowed segregated schooling without legislation. What was the reaction of border/Western states? - Answer- For those state with local options on segregation, they announced quickly that they were segregating/would be complying with the Brown decision soon. The white response in the Upper South and the peripheral states was relatively calm, if guarded. They did not know what to expect from the Brown decision. Whites who lived away from plantations were stoic about Brown -- but no Southern governor advocated compliance.