Plessy v Ferguson

Hannah Arendt Questions Whether School Desegregation Was Wise: Little Rock and Civil Rights
Civil Rights

Hannah Arendt: Was School Desegregation Was Wise? Little Rock & Civil Rights v States’ Rights

08/14/2024 Bruce Strom 1

In 1957 the NAACP registered nine black students to attend a previously all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. At first Orval Faubus, Governor of Arkansas, ordered the Arkansas National Guard to “preserve the peace” by preventing these black students from attending. This civil resistance offended President Eisenhower. As a prior general, he viewed this as insubordination, so he nationalized the Arkansas National Guard, instead instructing them to protect the African American students. This did not stop the bullying and taunting, one of the black students had acid thrown in her face. There was a protracted struggle, the public schools were closed for a year, and after reopening black students had to face both white mobs and bullying for several years. […]

NAACP Attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston Challenge Jim Crow in the Courts
Civil Rights

NAACP Attorneys Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston Challenge Jim Crow in the Courts

02/14/2024 Bruce Strom 2

Chief Justice Fred Vinson scheduled oral arguments for December 1952, but the justices were hopelessly fractured, Vinson did not want to abandon Plessy. A second round of oral arguments were scheduled for December 1953, but Chief Justice Fred Vinson died of a heart attack in September. After attending his funeral, Justice Felix Frankfurter quipped to a friend, “This is the first indication I have ever had that there is a god.”
President Eisenhower appointed long-time Republican Earl Warren as Chief Justice, he later said this was his life’s “biggest damn fool mistake.” Earl Warren convinced his fellow justices that this needed to be a unanimous decision. Warren said this, summarizing the court’s opinion, “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” […]