Rights and Protest: US Civil Rights Movement - Nature of Discrimination

Two main aspects of discrimination

1. Segregation = separation
2. Disenfranchisement

Concept of “Separate but Equal”

* White facilities are higher quality than black facilities -→ supposedly equal in their separation
* Treating African Americans as inferior, second class citizens

Disenfranchisement in Everything

* You *can* do things but just not engage with them as much (ok)

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* In Jim Crow US, the idea of being able to ‘access everything’ is white-centric
* Only the white people have freedom and full accessibility
* Basically legally enforced discrimination against African Americans

What was segregated during pre-Brown vs. Board?

* Attendance of public schools 
* Use of facilities → restaurants, theatres, hotels, cinemas, public baths etc.
* Use of public transport 
* Banning of interracial marriages between whites and African Americans

Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

* Made Jim Crow Laws constitutional -→ operations varied from state to state
* Introduced the concept of separate but equal -→ was super easy to get around with black schools < white schools
* Was in effect for a long time, so hard to reverse

Inequality of Funding in Schools

* x2-5 more per pupil spending in white schools
* Black school teachers paid less
* Worse facilities
* Shorter school year

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka

* Combination of multiple cases about school segregation
* Defence case said that “school segregation prepares them for the real world”
* Decided that segregation was detrimental to coloured children and gave them less learning motivation
* Desegregation was considered to be more cost-inhibitive and more practical than maintaining separate facilities
* Ordered desegregation but no time limit

Problems and Challenges of Brown vs. Board

* In some states, burden of desegregation was on individual students
* eg. in Florida, need to make individual formal request to school board and give sufficient advance notice
* Eisenhower: “no exact commencement or completion date should be required” -→ he had to use federal power to force states to comply
* Only a partial victory

Blossom Plan

* Created by the Little Rock school board to prevent Little Rock Nine from attending
* Gradualist
* School superintendent chooses which black students get to go
* Complying with Brown on a minimal level

NAACP Response to the Blossom Plan

* Not fast enough, want to push for immediate integration
* Federal court rules Blossom Plan meets requirements
* Central High (the school in question) was already mostly white -→ rich affluent area

Opposition to Little Rock Nine

* Little Rock school board
* Governor Orval Faubus -→ may have manufactured the crisis at Little Rock, used national guard to keep them out from the school
* Capital Citizens Council: white adults who did rallies and speeches

Little Rock Nine Case Study

* 9 students allowed to attend Central High
* Segregationists requested help from Faubus by citing there was violence
* National Guard brought in -→ demonstration of state vs. federal authorioty, Eisenhower couldn’t directly interfere
* Little Rock Mayor asked Eisenhower to send troops in -→ 101st Airborne Division enforce integration and escort the 9 students to school