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Part
III – Brown
and Beyond: Rising Expectations, 1954-1970
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court
handed down a
landmark ruling which marked the beginning of the end of the dual
system of
public education in America. Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka,
Kansas ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy
v.
Ferguson was unconstitutional because it created an inherently
inferior
system of education for black students in America. The impact of this important case continues
to shape public education in Mississippi
today.
A Brief History of Brown v. Board of
Education
In 1951, building on the
successes of two previous cases
related to segregated education, the National Association for the
Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) filed a class action civil suit on behalf of
black
parents who desired to desegregate white public schools.
Four of the five cases that made up Brown
raised the sociological argument that separate schools caused black
children to
form a negative image of themselves and thus promoted an inferiority
complex.
The Brown v. Board of
Education decision was to be
implemented under the 1955 United States Supreme Court ruling Brown
II. In Brown II the court
ruled that blacks
need not be immediately admitted into public schools on a racially
nondiscriminatory basis, but ordered school boards to end desegregation
with
“all deliberate speed.” However, the
Supreme Court failed to define “desegregation” or “deliberate speed,”
leaving
federal judges with the task of overseeing the implementation of the
Brown
decision. The all-white male judges who
composed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which served Mississippi,
delayed desegregation cases for long periods and ordered limited
changes in the
dual education system.
Mississippi
Prepares for the Impact of Brown v. Board of Education
Prior to the court’s
ruling, the state of Mississippi
anticipated the outcome and took steps to demonstrate to the courts
that Mississippi
was making an attempt to provide truly “separate but equal” educational
opportunities for black children. The
primary motivation for the steps taken was to protect the segregated
dual
school system which had existed in the state since Reconstruction and
the
passage of the 1890 state Constitution.
In an effort to preserve
segregation in public education,
Governor Hugh White proposed a “voluntary” segregation plan in 1953
which
called for a massive program of black school construction and offered
to raise
the salaries of black teachers to the same levels as white teachers. The legislature responded to this call by
passing the School Equalization Fund. Black
education leaders rejected this proposal because it would maintain
separate and
segregated schools.
Mississippi
Reacts to Brown v. Board of Education
Following the
rejection of Governor White’s “voluntary
segregation” plan and the Supreme Court’s Brown decision, the
state
legislature responded in 1954 by amending the state constitution so as
to close
all public schools “as a last resort” in the event that the federal
courts
called for the end of Mississippi’s
dual system of public education. State
leaders argued that federal courts could note force the state to
violate its
own constitution in the process of achieving desegregation in Mississippi
schools. In that same year, the state
legislature established the Legal Education Advisory Committee to plan
resistance to court ordered desegregation. In
1954 more than 40 statutes were passed by the state to
resist
integration.
In 1955, the Supreme Court passed
down Brown II which
provided some guidelines for the implementation of its original ruling. In response to Brown II, the NAACP
filed five lawsuits in an effort to challenge desegregation in selected
school
districts. In Singleton v.
Jackson Municipal Separate School District, a group of parents
brought suit
on behalf of their children which would require the desegregation of
public
schools in Jackson. The Singleton case was important because it
accepted desegregation of schools on a race ratio basis, meaning that
the black
and white ratio of the school should represent the make-up of the
community. The case Holmes v.
Alexander settled the argument of when desegregation would actually
take
place in thirty south Mississippi
school districts. The decision handed
down in Holmes stated that the public schools would be
desegregated
“with all deliberate speed.”
In 1956 Mississippi
elected James P. Coleman governor on the promise of keeping public
schools
segregated. Coleman responded to the
crisis in public education by signing legislation creating the State
Sovereignty Commission. This commission
originally was established to “protect the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi
and her sister states” from federal government interference, especially
in the
area of school integration.
The Sovereignty Commission was
composed of twelve appointed
members, including state lawmakers and members appointed by the
governor. Ex-officio members included the
governor,
lieutenant governor, speaker of the House of Representatives and the
attorney
general. The commission was budgeted
$250,000, which it used to develop a network of investigators, spies,
and
informants to keep the state aware of those the state felt threatened Mississippi’s
segregated society. The commission’s
files were legally secret and have just recently been opened to the
public.
Following the election of Ross Barnett as
governor in 1960,
the commission became a virtual tool of the Citizens Council, a white
supremacist organization founded by Robert B. Patterson in 1954. Governor Barnett appointed Citizen Council
members to the commission and allowed them to harass, intimidate, and
investigate “race agitators.” From 1960
to 1064, the commission gave the Citizens Council more than $190,000 in
tax
money.
Not only was the state diverting public tax
funds to private
organizations such as the Citizens Council, it was also providing
financial aid
to a system of private schools emerging within the state.
The state was closing predominantly black
schools in the process of promoting its voluntary desegregation plan of
school
choice and then taking the money saved from those school closings and
providing
tuition grants and financial aid to private schools across the state. This practice was ruled unconstitutional on January 31, 1969 when a
three-judge
federal court panel ruled that the program “fostered the creation of
private
segregated schools. The statute . . .
supports the establishment of a system of private schools operating on
a
racially segregated basis as an alternative to white students seeking
to avoid
public desegregated schools.”
In September, 1964, the first
step to desegregation took
place in Jackson under the
school
board’s “grade-a-year freedom of choice plan” for first grade only. Under this plan parents were given the choice
of placing their first grade child in any school in the district for
the
1964-1965 school year. In 1965 the plan
was challenged in court by black parents who argued that based on the
time
table, it would be 1976 before the Jackson
schools would be fully integrated. The
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the plaintiff’s appeal and the
school
board designed a new plan called the “Three Step Freedom of Choice
Plan.” Under the Three Step Plan all
grades would be
desegregated by the 1967-68 school year.
Despite the opposition from state
lawmakers, the various
governors, and the sovereignty commission, gains were made in the
federal
courts which facilitated the integration of Mississippi’s
public schools. In December, 1969, Singleton v. Jackson Municipal
Separate School
District was finally settled. The court ruled that the merger of student
bodies of racially segregated schools within the same district must be
completed by February 1, 1970. A unitary system of schools with desegregated
facilities was essentially achieved by the end of 1970 in the state of Mississippi.
Sources
McKee, Jesse O.
ed. Mississippi,
The Magnolia State. Atlanta:
Clairmont Press Inc., 2005.
McLemore, R. A. A
History of Mississippi.
Vol. 2. Jackson: University
of Mississippi Press, 1973.
Mississippi. http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/arlib/archives.html
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