Eufaula, Alabama Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Eufaula housing case==== For a number of years after the [[United States Supreme Court|U.S. Supreme Court]]'s 1954 decision ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', which overturned ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' by declaring racial segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, the schools in Eufaula remained unintegrated.<ref name=gray>{{cite book|author=Fred D. Gray|title=Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System : the Life and Works of Fred Gray, Preacher, Attorney, Politician|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6bc4DqcUSi4C&pg=PA131|date=October 1, 2012|publisher=NewSouth Books|isbn=978-1-58838-286-3|pages=131β9}}</ref> In 1955 the Eufaula Housing Authority sought to use [[eminent domain]] to condemn land on which a number of black families had lived since emancipation in order to build public housing, a park, and an expansion of the white high school.<ref>{{cite news|title=Suit Claims Segregation In Housing|work=Times Daily|date=June 10, 1958|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bhYsAAAAIBAJ&pg=2026%2C1035955}}</ref> The residents of the neighborhood, surrounded on all sides by white areas, thought that the city's motive was actually to keep their children out of a newly built high school once the now-inevitable racial integration occurred.<ref name=gray/> In 1958 civil rights attorneys [[Fred Gray (attorney)|Fred Gray]] and [[Constance Baker Motley]] filed a suit in the [[U.S. District court]] claiming that their clients' constitutional rights were being violated by the plan.<ref name=gray/> The federal case was dismissed, but Gray (now appearing without Motley)<ref name=gray/> appealed to the Alabama Circuit Court, where the case was heard by then-judge [[George Wallace]].<ref name=negro/> As before, Gray claimed that since the new development would allow white residents only, their civil rights were being violated by the City.<ref name=negro>{{cite news|title=Negro Requests White Residence|work=The Tuscaloosa News|date=October 21, 1958|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Wy0eAAAAIBAJ&pg=4750%2C2871781}}</ref> Although his appeal of the constitutional issue was unsuccessful, Gray also appealed the city's valuations of his clients' properties and, arguing before [[all-white jury|all-white juries]] in Wallace's court, managed in most of the cases to win much higher prices.<ref name=gray/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page