Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in one of, if not, its pivotol case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Linda Brown, a third grade student in Topeka, Kansas was forced to walk a mile everyday to catch a bus to a blacks only elementary school, eventhough there was a whites only elementary school. Oliver Brown, her father, and 13 other black parents filed suit against the local board of education with help from the NAACP. Of course, this case was lost in state court on the grounds that there were two schools, one black and one white, so this was not a violation of the 14th Amendment. The NAACP appealed this case to the Supreme Court and finally, on May 17, 1954, the court ruled in favor of Linda Brown, saying that the blacks only school were indeed inferior to white school. The justices voted nine-to-one.

Bibliography

http://www.naacp.org/legal/history
http://www.afroamhistory.about.com/library/blmclaurin_v_oklahoma.htm
http: www.blackpast.org
"Milestones". August 27, 2007. Time Magazine, p. 23
http://www.vahistorical.org/civilrights/equal.htm
http://www.citizensmedal.com/irenemorgan.htm
http://www.aaregistry.com
http://www.nps.gov
Certiprari, Post, p.850. "To Review A Judgement Affirming Denial of a Writ of Mandamus". p. 342
Hine, Clark Darlene, William C. Hine, Stanley Harrold. The African-American Odyssey. combined volume. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008, 2006, 2003, 2000.

Murray v. Maryland

On January 24,1935 Donald Gaines Murray applied to the University of Maryland School of Law. He was denied acceptance not because he did not meet standards, but solely because of his race. Murray's denial letter stated, "The University of Maryland does not admit Negro students and your application is accordingly rejected." As a form of justification the University used the Plessey vs. Furguson doctrine of separate but equal to find Murray education at another instutition. Not taking no for an answer, Murray appealed the decision to the board of education. His appeal was also denied. Murray then filed a law suit against the University. Thourgood Marshall and Charles Houston represented Murray in this case. They argued the point that the decision of denying Murray the right of attending the university because of his race is a direct contradiction of the Fourteenth Amendment "separate but equal". No other Law schools could provide the quality education that theUniversity of Maryland could and it was the only Law school of its kind in Maryland.The court orderded the President to admit Murray to the University of Maryland. The NAACP used this case as one of the first of many stratgic attacks against the separate but equal clause in the Fourteenth amendment.

Plessy v. Ferguson

In the 1980s after the civil war, blacks had to overcome many obstacles to be considered equal to whites and whites did everything they could to make sure that blacks remained inferior. This became difficult to whites as the years progressed because civil rights leaders and radical republicans fought for former slaves and other African Americans so that one day blacks would be considered equal to everyone else. One of the many issues that blacks had to overcome was the situation of a thirty year old shoe maker by the name of Homer Plessy. He was seven-eighths white and one-eight black, but was still considered to be black according to the whites. He was taken to court for sitting on the “whites” car of the train but when he arrived in court, he faced a judge that previously declared that the separate car act that stated that there was a particular side for whites and blacks on a train was unconstitutional. This was difficult for Plessy because after his case was battled,the judge, John Howard Ferguson ruled him as guilty so he took it to federal court and was found guilty once again, which was unfortunate because these accusations were against the Constitution. Eventually, a justice by the name of Justin Harlan, who was one of the few who understood the importance of equality, wrote a memorable speech that forced the courts and others to understand the magnitude of blacks’ rights in America.

McLaurin v. Oklahoma

A negro citizen of Oklahoma with a master's degree was admittied to graduate school at the state supported University of Oklahoma. However, he was required to sit in a row for negro students only. He was allowed to use the library and cafeteria, but was assigned to a special table in both. This violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and restricted the plantiff or engaging in discussions and exchanges of views about his profession. This case, like several before it, was argued up to the Supreme Court where it was decided that, in fact, this did violate his right.

Sweatt v. Painter

Herman Sweatt, a black, prospective law student filed suit against administrators of the University of Texas after being denied admission because of his race. Defendants argued that seperate law schools for blacks were opening soon. The court maintained the seperate but equal doctrine, but ruled that black schools were inferior to white ones. As for the ruling, the university was found guilty of violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Shelley v. Kraemer

The Shelley v. Kraemer case takes place in St. Louis, Missouri in the late 1940s. Lewis Place is a neighborhood in St. Louis and is known as the oldest African American private street in St. Louis, but it has not always been that way. Lewis Place was located in a community where St. Louis University, Washington University, and Ranken Technical College were all within a three mile radius. This became the back drop of the case in 1948. Homes in the Lewis Place neighborhood were built between 1890 and 1928 and were developed, as well as privately owned, by William J. Lewis. From 1910 to 1945, restrictive covenants, agreements between white home owners to exclude the sale of their homes to black buyers, banned African Americans from buying homes in Lewis Place. A group of African Americans led by attorney, Robert Whiterspoon, fought to put an end too restrictive covenants. They did this by persuading fair-skinned blacks who were able to pass for whites to buy several homes in Lewis Place. Once this was done, the beeds were then transferred to the actual buyers of the properties who wanted to knock down the restrictive covenants. On May 3, 1948, the Supreme Court decided to end restrictive covenants across the U.S. After the case, blacks slowly began to gain the right to purchase homes in the neighborhood of their choice.

Morgan v. Virginia

In July of 1944, 11 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, a young woman named Irene Morgan rejected that same demand on an interstate bus headed to Maryland from Gloucester, Virginia. Recovering from a miscarriage and already sitting far in the back, she defied the driver's order to surrender her seat to a white couple. For her actions, like Parks, Morgan was arrested. Eventually, her action caught the attention of lawyers of the NAACP, in which her case, led by Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie, reached the Supreme Court in two years. Once in court, instead of seeking a judgement on humanitarian grounds or the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment, they argued that interstate travel violated the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause. On June 3, 1946, that strategy paid off. The court ruled in Mrs. Morgan's favor, stating that segregation in interstate was indeed unconstitutional. Though that decision was now law, the southern states refused it and Jim Crow continued as the way of life in the South.

Gaines v. Canada

Gaines v. Canada was the NAACPs first true accomplishment int he legal campaign. Lloyd Gaines brought the fact that Missouri State University would not admitt him into the institution because of the color of his skin to the attention of Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston. The case went to the state courts of Missouri, but was denied because of previous laws being passed. "The state of Missouri provides seperate schools and universities for blacks and whites." It later went to the Supreme Court. There, it was argued on November 9, 1938 and a decision was reached on December 12, 1938. The Supreme Court chose in favor of Gaines, holding that denying an individual admission into an institution was in violation of the 14th Amendment.

Smith v. Allwright

The white primary ended in 1944 because of the Supreme Court ruling in the Smith v. Allwright case. The white primary restricted blacks from entering into the Democratic Political Party. The success of this case was a huge victory for the NAACP legal campaign and many more would follow.

Overview

In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, began to fight the legal battle for social justice for African-Americans under the leadership of Charles Hamilton Houston and his student Thurgood Marshall.
In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court decided upon the "seperate but equal" principle in Plessy v. Ferguson. However, in the 1930s, Nathan Margold conducted a study and found that under segregation, the facilities for blacks were seperate, but never equal. Margold argued that this violated the equality issue spoken about in Plessy's principle. For this reason, Margold proposed a series of lawsuits that would challenge the system. After Houston was appointed to be the first Special Counsel of the NAACP in 1935, he refined Margold's strategies and came up with a battle plan that would later become known as the "equalization strategy".
Houston's equalization strategy filed a series of lawsuits demanding that black facilities be made equal to those for white students. Houston hypothesized that the segregated states could not afford to maintain black schools that were equal to the reserved, white schools.
From 1935 to 1940, Houston argued and won several cases such as Murray v. Maryland(1936) and Gaines v. Canada(1938) with the equalization strategy.
Rightfully, Thurgood Marshall succeeded Houston as the NAACP Special Counsel and continued the legal campaign with cases such as Smith v. Allwright, Morgan v. Virginia, Shelley v. Kraemer, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma. Although there were several historic cases, none were as big as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decided that segregation in public education violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case served as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.