The Affluent Society
Kallie, James, Josh, Sarah
Legal Assault on Segregation
Racial segregation involved the decisions of the courts to determine the conflict due to the fact that the Truman Administration focus of the Civil Rights had faded, which resulted in the Eisenhower Administration not drastically worrying about the issue. When the League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the segregation in schools in the Mendez v. Westminster and won in the California Supreme Court, the state legislature also followed by repealing all school laws of segregation. These repeals were signed by the governor and Chief Justice, Earl Warren, who was involved in the historical Brown Case. The NAACP thrived to gain admission to higher learning institutions that the whites had access to, and to eliminate the Plessy v. Ferguson standards. Thurgood Marshall, leader of the NAACP, thrived to reverse the “separate but equal” standard, and examples of this were in Missouri and the University of Texas.
The Brown Case
· Oliver Brown went to court in the trial Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas because his 3rd grade daughter had to walk across dangerous railroad tracks to reach her school rather than attend an all-white school near her
· Thurgood Marshall a member of the NAACP decided that it was time to attack segregation because it labeled one group of people as unfit to associate with another
· Earl Warren who was the Supreme Justice at the time declared segregation unconstitutional and concluded that it violated the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment because separate schools were not equal
· African Americans hailed this decision as the “Second Emancipation Proclamation,” however; it did not ban segregation in any other public facilities other than public schools
· Brown v. Board of Education marked the beginning of the “Warren Court” as an active agent of social change and gave optimism that segregation would end
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Revived the struggle for racial justice in 1955 by launching the civil rights movement in the South with a year long boycott when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger.
- Parks became known as a 'seamstress with tired feet' in reference to the assistant tailoring job she was coming home from. Because of this, Rosa Parks became the symbol of ordinary blacks' determination to resist the daily injustices.
- Rosa Parks further proved her symbolism by becoming a political activist and becoming one of the few blacks who were able to cast a ballot.
- Martin Luther King Jr. stepped up and presented the Speech at Montgomery, Alabama. There, he invoked the morals of his fellow citizens by stating how Rosa Parks was one of the finest citizens one could come across at Montgomery.
The Day Break of Freedom
The Montgomery Bus Boycott presented Martin Luther King Jr. as the national symbol.
He electrified audiences to use non-violence for justice and equality.
Freedom schools were established for black children in Mississippi
African American adults saw freedom as enjoying political rights and economic opportunities.