Segregation, Education and Litigation; Brown v Board Nicole Bloomfield, Cierra Venable Impact of Walter White and Charles Hamilton Houston Charles Hamilton Houston

● Civil rights attorney ● Mentor of Thurgood Marshall ● Developed legal strategy which challenged segregation of schools ● Known as “the man who killed Jim Crow” ● 1895-1950 Walter White

● NAACP executive secretary from 1931-35 ● Investigated lynchings and worked to end segregation ● Used legal channels to fight discrimination like poll taxes The NAACP strategy and the Margold Report NAACP Strategy

● Extensive research to plan the destruction of the ‘separate but equal’ doctrine ● Key players were African American plaintiffs and lawyers ● Started winning series of ground-breaking cases ● Victories served as legal foundation to disassemble state-imposed segregation Margold Report

● Challenged inherent inequality of segregation in primary/secondary schools ● Charles Hamilton Houston modified report- needed to establish legal precedents ● Begin with lawsuits for equal facilities in graduate/professional schools The case of Donald Murray Donald Gaines Murray

● 1890: “colored students ruled out’ ● First african american at University of Maryland school of Law ● Worked with Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall ● Formed basis for Marshall’s arguments in Brown v Board ● "since the State of Maryland had not provided a comparable law school for blacks that Murray should be allowed to attend the white university." Gaines v. Missouri

● Lloyd Gaines graduated from a public university specifically for black students in 1935 ● Since they lacked a law school, he applied to University of Missouri Law School and was refused admission ● Case was taken to the supreme court ● 7-2 decision that the denial indeed violated the Equal Protection clause ● Missouri failed to abide by constitution to provide equal access to education in the state Sweatt v. Painter

● Supreme court case challenging “separate but equal” doctrine from Plessy v. Ferguson ● Sweatt denied to University of Texas law school based on race ● School offered to create law school for blacks ● Court found that this school, which was to be opened in 1947, would be grossly unequal to the original school ● Argued school would be inferior in all areas (prestige, facilities, etc) and diminish post college success ● Violation of equal protection clause McLaurin v. OK State Regents

● McLaurin with a masters was admitted to the Univ. of Oklahoma (state supported) ○ Candidate for a doctorate in education ● State permitted him to use the same library, cafeteria and classroom as the white students ○ The school made him use the “colored section” ■ The colored section was special tables for him by himself everywhere he went McLaurin v. OK State Regents

“The conditions under which Appellant is required to receive his education deprive him of his personal and present right to the equal protection of the laws, and the Fourteenth Amendment precludes such differences in treatment by the State based upon race.”

1951-Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the board of education in Topeka, Kansas ● His daughter, Linda Brown, was denied access into an all-white school in Kansas ● Brown claimed that Black schools were not anywhere equal to white schools as far as education and funding ○ 14th amendment- “no state can deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”

Brown II challenge 1955- The court released a second opinion of the case ● The original verdict did not specify how the students and schools should be integrated ○ Many schools across the Nation refused to integrate schools ● Brown V. Board 2 made sure everyone integrated “with deliberate speed”

The famous case sparked many eventful protests and it symbolized success within the black community

● Rosa Parks ● Little Rock Nine ● Ruby Bridges The white community on the other hand…

White southern leaders and newspapers voiced their strong disapproval for the ruling

● “White and Negro children in the same schools will lead to miscegenation. Miscegenation leads to mixed marriages and mixed marriages lead to the mongrelization of the human race.” Bibliography https://www.biography.com/people/walter-white-9529708 http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/hig her-education.html

“Rights and Protests”. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/305us337 Bibliography http://www.blackpast.org/primary/mclaurin-v-oklahoma-stat e-regents-1950