Civil rights movement

=== ''Brown v. Board of Education'', 1954 ===
{{Main|Brown v. Board of Education}}

In the spring of 1951, black students in [[Virginia]] protested their unequal status in the state's segregated educational system. Students at [[R.R. Moton High School|Moton High School]] protested the overcrowded conditions and failing facility.<ref name="autogenerated55">Klarman, Michael J., ''Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement'' : abridged edition of ''From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality'', Oxford; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 55.</ref> Some local leaders of the NAACP had tried to persuade the students to back down from their protest against the Jim Crow laws of school segregation. When the students did not budge, the NAACP joined their battle against school segregation. The NAACP proceeded with five cases challenging the school systems; these were later combined under what is known today as ''Brown v. Board of Education''.<ref name="autogenerated55" /> Under the leadership of [[Walter Reuther]], the [[United Auto Workers]] donated $75,000 to help pay for the NAACP's efforts at the Supreme Court.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Boyle|first=Kevin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mt4ZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA120|title=The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945–1968|date=1995|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-1-5017-1327-9|page=121|language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Warren Supreme Court.jpg|thumb|In 1954, the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.]]
On May 17, 1954, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] under Chief Justice [[Earl Warren]] ruled unanimously in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]] of Topeka, Kansas'', that mandating, or even permitting, [[School segregation in the United States|public schools to be segregated]] by race was [[Constitutionality|unconstitutional]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483|title=Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1)|website=Oyez|language=en|access-date=October 3, 2019}}</ref> [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] Warren wrote in the court majority opinion that<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/5-decision/courts-decision.html|title=The Court's Decision – Separate Is Not Equal|website=americanhistory.si.edu|access-date=October 3, 2019}}</ref>

{{blockquote|quote=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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.civilrights.org/education/brown/brown.html |title=Brown v. Board of Education (Kansas) |website=The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights |access-date=March 28, 2016  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325194202/http://www.civilrights.org/education/brown/brown.html |archive-date=March 25, 2016 }}</ref>|sign=|source=}}

The lawyers from the NAACP had to gather plausible evidence in order to win the case of ''Brown vs. Board of Education''. Their method of addressing the issue of school segregation was to enumerate several arguments. One pertained to having exposure to interracial contact in a school environment. It was argued that interracial contact would, in turn, help prepare children to live with the pressures that society exerts in regard to race and thereby afford them a better chance of living in a democracy. In addition, another argument emphasized how "'education' comprehends the entire process of developing and training the mental, physical and moral powers and capabilities of human beings".<ref>Risa L. Goluboff, ''The Lost Promise of Civil Rights'', Harvard University Press, MA: Cambridge, 2007, pp. 249–251</ref>

[[Risa Goluboff]] wrote that the NAACP's intention was to show the Courts that African American children were the victims of school segregation and their futures were at risk. The Court ruled that both ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' (1896), which had established the "separate but equal" standard in general, and ''[[Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education]]'' (1899), which had applied that standard to schools, was unconstitutional.

The federal government filed a [[friend of the court brief]] in the case urging the justices to consider the effect that segregation had on America's image in the [[Cold War]]. Secretary of State [[Dean Acheson]] was quoted in the brief stating that ''"The United States is under constant attack in the foreign press, over the foreign radio, and in such international bodies as the United Nations because of various practices of discrimination in this country."''<ref name="amphilsoc.org">{{Cite web|url=http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/480405.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501080744/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/480405.pdf  |title=Antonly Lester, "Brown v. Board of Education Overseas" ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' Vol. 148, No. 4, December 2004|archive-date=May 1, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.history.ucsb.edu/courses/tempdownload.php?attach_id=5781|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207210755/http://www.history.ucsb.edu/courses/tempdownload.php?attach_id=5781  |title=Mary L Dudziak "Brown as a Cold War Case" ''Journal of American History'', June 2004|archive-date=December 7, 2014}}</ref>

The following year, in the case known as ''Brown II'', the Court ordered segregation to be phased out over time, "with all deliberate speed".<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954bvbe ''Brown v Board of Education'' Decision] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605222536/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954bvbe |date=June 5, 2008 }}&nbsp;– Civil Rights Movement Archive</ref> ''[[Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas]]'' (1954) did not overturn ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' (1896). ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'' was segregation in transportation modes. ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' dealt with segregation in education. ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' did set in motion the future overturning of 'separate but equal'.

[[File:Integration.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|School integration, Barnard School, [[Washington, D.C.]], 1955]]

On May 18, 1954, [[Greensboro, North Carolina]], became the first city in the South to publicly announce that it would abide by the Supreme Court's ''Brown v. Board of Education'' ruling. "It is unthinkable,' remarked School Board Superintendent Benjamin Smith, 'that we will try to [override] the laws of the United States."<ref name="deseg" /> This positive reception for Brown, together with the appointment of African American David Jones to the school board in 1953, convinced numerous white and black citizens that Greensboro was heading in a progressive direction. Integration in Greensboro occurred rather peacefully compared to the process in Southern states such as Alabama, [[Arkansas]], and Virginia where "[[massive resistance]]" was practiced by top officials and throughout the states. In Virginia, some counties closed their public schools rather than integrate, and many white [[Christianity|Christian]] private schools were founded to accommodate students who used to go to public schools. Even in Greensboro, much local resistance to desegregation continued, and in 1969, the federal government found the city was not in compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Transition to a fully integrated school system did not begin until 1971.<ref name="deseg">{{cite web |url=http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/schooldeseginteg.aspx |title=Civil Rights Greensboro |access-date=July 29, 2016 |archive-date=May 15, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140515045050/http://library.uncg.edu/dp/crg/topicalessays/schooldeseginteg.aspx}}</ref>

Many Northern cities also had [[Racial segregation#United States|de facto segregation]] policies, which resulted in a vast gulf in educational resources between black and white communities. In [[Harlem (Manhattan)|Harlem]], New York, for example, neither a single new school was built since the turn of the century, nor did a single nursery school exist&nbsp;– even as the [[Second Great Migration (African American)|Second Great Migration]] was causing overcrowding. Existing schools tended to be dilapidated and staffed with inexperienced teachers. ''Brown'' helped stimulate activism among [[New York City]] parents like [[Mae Mallory]] who, with the support of the NAACP, initiated a successful lawsuit against the city and state on ''Brown''{{'s}} principles. Mallory and thousands of other parents bolstered the pressure of the lawsuit with a school boycott in 1959. During the boycott, some of the first [[freedom schools]] of the period were established. The city responded to the campaign by permitting more open transfers to high-quality, historically white schools. (New York's African-American community, and Northern desegregation activists generally, now found themselves contending with the problem of [[white flight]], however.)<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkPnRoKK-XYC&pg=PA54 |title=Power, Protest, and the Public Schools: Jewish and African American Struggles in New York City |first=Melissa F. |last=Weiner |date=2010 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-4772-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| url = http://hisofblackamfall2014.voices.wooster.edu/files/2014/08/Adina_Back_Exposing_the_Whole_Segregation_Myth3.pdf| title = Adina Back "Exposing the Whole Segregation Myth: The Harlem Nine and New York City Schools" in ''Freedom north: Black freedom struggles outside the South, 1940–1980'', Jeanne Theoharis, Komozi Woodard, eds.(Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) pp. 65–91}}</ref>