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Roberts v. the City of Boston
The Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that the City of Boston has the right to establish segregated schools, and that they do not violate the state constitutional guarantee of equal rights to black people.
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Slaughterhouse Cases
Declared that most citizen rights were under the state and not the 14th amendment. This allowed states to segregate schools as a state right.
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Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws allowed for segregation and discrimination. 9 Southern states would follow segregation laws by 1892.
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Plessy v. Ferguson
Despite arguing that forced segregation stamped African Americans as inferior, the Supreme Court decided that "separate but equal" did not violate the 14th amendment. -
Cumming v. Board of Education of Richmond County, State of Georgia
Supreme court decided that the closure of free black schools due to financial constraints was not based on racism despite two free white public schools remaining open. -
Founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. For about the first 20 years of its existence, it tried to persuade Congress and other legislative bodies to enact laws that would protect African Americans from lynching's and other racist actions
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
1930s, lawyers from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had strategized to bring local lawsuits to court, arguing that separate was not equal and that every child, regardless of race, deserved a first-class education.
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NAACP - Charles Hamilton Houston
NAACP was headed by Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston, together with Thurgood Marshall, devised a strategy to attack Jim Crow laws by striking at them where they were perhaps weakest—in the field of education.
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NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund established
NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund established
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Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Oklahoma
Supreme Court rules that if a state does not have a law school for black people, it must admit them to its white law school.
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Briggs v. Elliott
Thurgood Marshall and NAACP officials decided that the NAACP would launch a test case against segregation in public schools if at least 20 plaintiffs could be found. By November, Harry Briggs and 19 other plaintiffs were assembled, and the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit against the Clarendon County School Board:
Briggs v. Elliott became one of the cases consolidated by the Supreme Court into Brown v. Board of Education. -
Sweatt v. Painter
Supreme Court rules that a legal education must be “substantially equal.” Because the separate law school of the University of Texas does not meet this standard, African Americans must be admitted to the white law school.
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Bolling v. Sharpe
Charles Houston provided legal representation for the Consolidated Parents Group, who attempted to enroll a group of Black students in all White John Philip Sousa Junior High School, in Washington, D.C.
The Bolling case became one of the consolidated Brown cases. The U.S. Supreme Court would eventually file a separate opinion on Bolling because the 14th Amendment was not applicable in Washington, D.C. -
McLaurin v. Board of Regents of Oklahoma
Supreme Court rules that students in graduate schools of education must be treated equally, and separate seating cannot be assigned in classrooms, libraries, or other facilities.
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Davis v. Prince Edward County
NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson challenged Virginia's segregated schools.
Another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education. -
Brown b. Board of Education Filed
Brown v. Board of Education is first filed with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Brown itself was not a single case, but rather a coordinated group of five lawsuits against school districts in Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (VA.), Bolling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Supreme Court decides it is unconstitutional to have segregation in public schools overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, and ruling that the doctrine of separate but equal violates the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection.
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Bolling v. Sharpe
Court held that racial segregation in DC a public schools violated the Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment.
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia resolutions of "interposition and nullification" that declared the Court's decision "null, void, and no effect."
passed laws imposed sanctions on anyone who implemented desegregation, enacted school closing plans that suspension of public education, and the disbursement of public funds send children to private schools. -
Blossom Plan - Little Rock Phase Program
Little Rock School Board adopted a plan for gradual integration, called for desegregation to begin in the fall of 1957 at Central and filter down to the lower grades over the next 6 years. students would be permitted to transfer from any school where their race was in the minority, thus ensuring that the black schools would remain racially segregated. Federal courts upheld the Blossom Plan in response to a lawsuit by the NAACP. -
Brown II
Court rules that in implementing the first Brown decision, desegregation is to proceed with “all deliberate speed,” and each local school district can set its own timetable.
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27 Students Denied at Little Rock Schools
27 Black students attempted to enroll for the second semester at Central High, Little Rock Technical High, Forest Heights Junior High and Forest Park Elementary School. They were refused enrollment by the school district, prompting a lawsuit by 12 Black parents and the NAACP.
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The "Southern Manifesto"
Arkansas’ U.S. senators and congressmen joined more than 90 other southern legislators in signing the “Southern Manifesto” — a document denouncing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and encouraging Southern states to resist desegregation.
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Gradual Plan of Integration Introduced
U.S. district court judge upheld the gradual desegregation plan, saying the school board was acting in “utmost good faith.” Despite an appeal, a federal appellate court also upheld the gradual plan, which called for integration to begin at Central High in September 1957 and other city schools to follow in subsequent years.
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Petition from the Mothers' League
Faubus insisted the U.S. Supreme Court had overstepped its constitutional authority with Brown v. Board of Education. August 1957, he supported a petition by the Mothers’ League, a newly formed group wishing to prevent integration at Central, where some of the women had children.
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Mothers’ League formed
The segregationist Mothers’ League formed in August 1957 and filed lawsuits to prevent integration at Central High School.
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Report of White Supremacists
Faubus interrupted a broadcast of the “I Love Lucy Show” on local television to announce he had received reports of “caravans” of white supremacists heading for Little Rock to prevent integration at Central High School.
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National Guard Ordered
Arkansas governor Orval Faubus ordered the state's National Guard to block their entrance. Faubus said it was for the safety of the nine students.
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Students Turned Away
The Little Rock Nine arrived to enter Central High School, but they were turned away by the Arkansas National Guard. Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard the night before to, as he put it, “maintain and restore order…” The soldiers barred the African American students from entering.
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Confirmation Nation Guard Blocked Students From Attending
Faubus revealed in an evening press conference that he had ordered the National Guard surrounding Central High School to block the Black students from entering — a strategy he had believed would ensure peace and order.
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School Mobbed
Just 24 hours after a federal judge ordered the Little Rock Nine to begin attending Central High immediately, a belligerent mob, along with the National Guard, again prevented the teens from entering the school.
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Sunrise Service By the Mother's League
The Mother’s League held a sunrise service at the school as a protest against integration, singing “Dixie” and waving Confederate flags. But that afternoon, federal judge Ronald Davies issued a ruling that desegregation would continue as planned the next day.
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Telegram From Eisenhower
Faubus received a telegram from President Dwight D. Eisenhower stating in part, “the federal constitution will be upheld by me by every legal means at my command.” Faubus re-affirmed his stance against integration in a televised press conference and insisted the federal government cease its demands for integrated schools.
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Little Rock Police Dept. Takes Over
Judge Davies ordered the Guard removed and the Little Rock Police Department took over to maintain order.
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Martin Luther King Jr. Speaks About Standoff
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. urged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the standoff, lest he “set the process of integration back 50 years.”
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First 3-Hour School Day
Little Rock Nine entered the school. Outside, rioting broke out and the Little Rock police removed the Nine for their safety.
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Arkansas National Guard
Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,200 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock to begin escorting the students into the school.
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Little Brown Nine Start School
Personally guarded by soldiers from the National Guard soldiers and the Army's 101st Airborne, the Little Rock Nine began regular class attendance at Central High. The 101st Airborne left in October and the federalized Arkansas National Guard troops remained throughout the year.
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Minnijean Brown
One of the Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown, was suspended in December for dropping chili on some boys after they refused to let her pass to her seat in the cafeteria. She was later expelled in February 1958 for calling a girl who had hit her with a purse “white trash.” After Brown’s expulsion, students passed around cards that read, “One Down, Eight to Go.”
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Green Graduates
Ernest Green — the only senior among the Nine — graduated in May of 1958
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The Lost Year
The 1958-59 school year became known as the Lost Year, because rather than find a way to peacefully integrate its public high schools after the chaotic start to integration, the Little Rock community and Gov. Orval Faubus chose to shut them down.
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Residents Vote Against Integration
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in September 1958 , Faubus ordered four Little Rock high schools closed as of 8 a.m. Sept. 15, pending the outcome of a public vote on integration. On Sept. 27, residents voted 19,470 to 7,561 against integration, and the high schools remained closed.
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Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools
The Women’s Emergency Committee to Open Our Schools formed to publicly condemn the governor’s decision to close Little Rock high schools for the 1958-59 school year. This group also supported the reinstatement of the 44 teachers and administrators who were fired for suspected support of integration.
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Ordered to Reopen Schools
The decision left 3,665 students without access to public education. A federal court declared the closings unconstitutional, and schools reopened in August 1959. The increased level of integration in the years that followed, however, led to the start of Arkansas’s private school movement.
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Legal Defense Fund (LDF)
In the face of “massive resistance,” LDF sued hundreds of school districts to vindicate the promise of Brown. It was not until LDF’s subsequent victories in Green v. County School Board (68) and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (71) that the Supreme Court issued mandates that segregation be dismantled “root and branch,” outlined factors to be considered to eliminate effects of segregation, and ensured that federal district courts had the authority.
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San Antonio Independent School District vs. Rodriquez
Supreme Court rules that education is not a fundamental right under the Constitution and that the Constitution does not require egalitarian funding of schools by the state across local school district lines.
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Little Rock Becomes a National Historic Site
President Bill Clinton signed legislation that made the school a National Historic Site to "preserve, protect, and interpret for the benefit, education, and inspiration of present and future generations…its role in the integration of public schools and the development of the civil rights movement in the United States."
History