‘Separate but equal’ is inherently unequal: The NAACP’s struggle against segregation

Before June springs into action I thought it important to honour the past month as the 62nd anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education verdict which overturned the Jim Crow Laws and marked a milestone in civil rights history. In May 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools violated the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which grants equal protection of the laws to all United States citizens.

Brown v. Board of Education decision, Oct 1954, © Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To see this document in the collection click the image in the blog.

The case was prompted by Oliver Brown who – after his daughter, Linda Brown, was deemed by the management of Monroe Elementary as the wrong colour for their white elementary school – sought support from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Other parents joined Brown’s campaign and, on 1 October 1951, the NAACP took their cases to the Supreme Court to request a ruling against the segregation of schools.

NAACP programs, 25 Jun 1957 - 8 Jul 1962, © Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To see this document in the collection click the image in the blog.

Brown’s case was led by Thurgood Marshall, an NAACP litigator who had been arguing against the unjust racial policies of schools and universities since 1933 following the refusal of his own application to the University of Maryland’s Law School which was denied solely on the basis of his race. As with his first case against Maryland, Marshall succeeded in his efforts and won the Brown argument. On the 17th May 1954 the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court was read, concluding that “in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. 

As America was to learn, however, this was not the end of racial segregation across schools. In 1961, the states of South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi still maintained completely segregated school systems. Moreover, a report released just last month by the Government Accountability Office, shows that the number of schools segregated along both racial and financial lines grew by 143% between the school years 2000/01 and 2013/14. Nevertheless, there is no denying that Marshall’s Brown v. Board case was a major turning point that set the wheels in motion towards a less segregated America.