IB History Segregation and Education Notes

The legal foundations of segregation

1. After the Civil War, the Thirteenth (1865), Fourteenth (1868), and Fifteenth (1870) Amendments promised equality and citizenship for formerly enslaved people.
2. The end of Reconstruction (1877) allowed Southern states to pass Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation in schools, transport, and public facilities.
3. Jim Crow laws were reinforced by literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses that effectively disenfranchised Black voters across the South.
4. In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 that racial segregation was constitutional under the "separate but equal" doctrine.
   1. Homer Plessy challenged a Louisiana law requiring separate railway carriages; the Court said segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
   2. Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, declaring "our Constitution is color-blind" - a phrase later used by civil rights lawyers.
5. Plessy gave constitutional backing to segregation for nearly 60 years, affecting every area of Southern life - especially education.

Inequality in school funding

1. Southern states systematically underfunded Black schools; in Mississippi (1940s), per-pupil spending for white students was four times that of Black students.
2. Black schools received outdated textbooks, lacked science equipment, and operated in overcrowded, dilapidated buildings.
3. Black teachers were paid significantly less; in South Carolina (1945), white teachers earned nearly twice the salary of their Black counterparts.
4. School bus transport was routinely denied to Black children, who often walked miles to attend distant, segregated schools.
5. In Clarendon County, South Carolina, the school board spent $179 per white pupil vs $43 per Black pupil - one of the cases later bundled into Brown.
6. The Jim Crow system ensured that educational inequality reinforced economic and social subordination across generations.

The NAACP legal strategy

1. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) adopted a legal strategy to dismantle segregation through the courts rather than direct protest.
2. Charles Hamilton Houston, dean of Howard Law School, devised the incremental approach - targeting graduate and professional schools first.
   1. Houston believed exposing the lie of "equal" facilities would eventually force the Court to overturn Plessy.
   2. Houston filmed conditions in Southern Black schools to document the gap between "separate" and "equal" - footage used in NAACP fundraising.
3. Thurgood Marshall, Houston's protege, became the NAACP's chief counsel and argued the key cases that chipped away at Plessy.
4. Early victories included Murray v. Pearson (1936) and Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), which forced states to admit Black students to graduate schools.
5. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund (LDF), founded in 1940, became the organisational vehicle for the campaign - funded by donations and membership dues.

Sweatt and McLaurin - cracking the doctrine

1. In Sweatt v. Painter (1950), the Supreme Court ruled that Texas's hastily created Black law school was not equal to the University of Texas Law School.
   1. The Court considered intangible factors - reputation, faculty prestige, alumni networks - not just physical facilities.
2. In McLaurin v. Oklahoma (1950), the Court ruled that segregating George McLaurin within the University of Oklahoma - separate seating, dining, library sections - impaired his ability to learn.
3. Both cases stopped short of overturning Plessy but weakened its logic by showing that "separate" could never truly be "equal."
4. Marshall and the NAACP used these rulings as stepping stones toward a direct challenge to school segregation at all levels.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) combined five cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington D.C.
2. Oliver Brown sued the Topeka Board of Education after his daughter Linda was denied entry to an all-white school and forced to travel across town.
3. Thurgood Marshall argued the case before the Supreme Court, presenting psychological evidence that segregation damaged Black children's self-esteem.
   1. The Kenneth and Mamie Clark doll test showed that Black children preferred white dolls, indicating internalised racial inferiority caused by segregation.
   2. The doll test was controversial - critics questioned whether it measured the effects of segregation or broader societal racism.
4. Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered a unanimous 9-0 decision, declaring that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
   1. Warren worked to secure unanimity, believing a split decision would weaken the ruling's moral authority.
   2. Warren was a recent appointee by Eisenhower - who later reportedly called the appointment "the biggest damn fool mistake I ever made."
5. By 1964 - ten years after Brown - only about 2% of Black children in the Deep South attended integrated schools.
6. Critics - including Thurgood Marshall - argued that Brown II's lack of a firm deadline made the ruling nearly unenforceable.
7. The NAACP was forced to file hundreds of individual lawsuits against school districts - a slow and expensive process that delayed real change.

Massive resistance and white backlash

1. Southern politicians organised "massive resistance" - a coordinated campaign to defy Brown and maintain segregation.
2. The Southern Manifesto (1956) was signed by 101 Southern congressmen, condemning the Brown decision as an abuse of judicial power.
3. Virginia's Prince Edward County closed its entire public school system (1959-1964) rather than integrate, leaving Black children without schooling for five years.
4. White Citizens' Councils used economic intimidation - firing Black employees, denying loans - to prevent families from seeking integration.
5. "White flight" saw white families move to suburbs or enroll children in private "segregation academies," undermining desegregation in practice.
6. Some states passed interposition resolutions, claiming the right to nullify federal rulings - echoing pre-Civil War states' rights arguments.
7. The Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence in membership during the late 1950s, using violence and terror to resist desegregation.

The Little Rock Nine (1957)

1. In September 1957, nine Black students attempted to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
2. Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to block the students' entry, directly defying a federal court order.
3. Elizabeth Eckford famously arrived alone and faced a screaming white mob - images broadcast worldwide embarrassed the United States during the Cold War.
4. President Eisenhower - initially reluctant to intervene - sent the 101st Airborne Division to escort the students and federalised the Arkansas National Guard.
   1. This was the first time since Reconstruction that a president used federal troops to protect Black citizens' rights in the South.
5. The Little Rock Nine endured daily harassment, physical assaults, and death threats throughout the school year.
6. Melba Pattillo Beals later described being sprayed with acid and having dynamite thrown at her - showing the violent reality of desegregation.
7. Faubus closed all Little Rock high schools for the 1958-1959 school year (the "Lost Year") rather than continue integration.
8. In Cooper v. Aaron (1958), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states could not delay desegregation - reasserting federal authority.

James Meredith and Ole Miss (1962)

1. James Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi ("Ole Miss") in 1961 and was rejected twice on racial grounds.
2. The NAACP took his case to federal court; a ruling ordered Ole Miss to admit Meredith.
3. Governor Ross Barnett personally blocked Meredith's registration, declaring "no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am governor."
4. President Kennedy sent 500 US Marshals and later federal troops; a riot broke out on campus on 30 September 1962.
   1. The riot killed 2 people and injured over 300; 30,000 troops were ultimately deployed to restore order.
5. Meredith enrolled and graduated in August 1963 - escorted by federal marshals for his entire time at Ole Miss.
6. The crisis demonstrated that desegregation of higher education required the same federal force as school integration.

Broader impact of education desegregation

1. Brown inspired the wider civil rights movement - the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) followed just a year later, energised by the legal victory.
2. The legal precedent established in Brown was used to challenge segregation in parks, beaches, libraries, and public transport.
3. The Civil Rights Act (1964) finally gave the federal government power to withhold funding from segregated schools, accelerating compliance.
4. Title VI of the Act prohibited discrimination in any federally funded programme - a powerful enforcement tool for school integration.
5. By the early 1970s, integration in the South had advanced significantly - over 90% of Black students attended integrated schools in some states.
6. However, de facto segregation persisted in Northern cities through housing patterns and school district boundaries - a problem Brown did not address.
7. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) directed federal funds to schools serving disadvantaged students, further linking federal money to desegregation compliance.
8. Thurgood Marshall was appointed the first Black Supreme Court Justice in 1967 - a direct legacy of his legal campaign against segregation.
9. Historians debate whether Brown was a catalyst for change or whether broader social and economic forces drove the civil rights movement.
10. The struggle over education desegregation showed that legal rights alone were insufficient - enforcement, political will, and grassroots activism were all necessary.