Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a 1954 Supreme Court decision that undid the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. Brown v. Board stated that a separate but equal education was unequal and therefore, unconstitutional. Jim Crow was still intact in other societal elements, this decision only ended Jim Crow within the world of education.
So, what changed in the nearly 60 years between Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board? Did white people suddenly see how damaging their white supremacy was and had as a collective made a concerted effort to dismantle it? Yeah, no...Definitely not. If that had happened, it wouldn't have taken a Supreme Court decision to enforce it, we'd have just done it. What happened was the formation of an organization called the NAACP.
The NAACP was founded in 1908, and became an organization with actual political and monetary power behind it. It would use its power to move civil rights forward, before the Civil Rights movement of the 50's and 60's even began. Thurgood Marshall, an attorney for the NAACP was the lawyer who fought for the plaintiffs(Brown) in the Brown v. Board case. (Thurgood Marshall would go on to become the first Black Supreme Court justice, himself. Talk about full circle!)
Black activists did all the work to force the Supreme Court to honor their own concepts. They had to prove that separate was not equal, and therefore, unconstitutional, so the SC had no choice but to relent. white America was once again forced to change, kicking and screaming(more on that tomorrow) into a slightly more equal in one area, nation. white people do not get to pat themselves on the back for this landmark change. We should be humiliated that it took a Supreme Court case to get us to move toward equality.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment