Dynamics of Desegregation; 6; The Inevitable Monday

the dynamics of desegregation many teams need and eu a constitution in the aisle all there is in this country and also to ruin lives of citizens there is an old west our constitution is not unknown mortal tolerates classes among citizens these

famous words were written and eighteen ninety six by a former slave holder from kentucky was the justice john marshal harlan of the united states supreme court but rendered in a long descent to a pro segregation decision these words continue to ring down through the years continued to rain delay inevitable monday when the supreme court upheld them in the nineteen fifty four school desegregation decision that wrote the epitaph for jim crow making any five year before harlan's words were written a grandson of runaway slaves was born in washington dc who more than anyone else would be responsible for hastening that inevitable monday charles hamilton houston went on to graduate with distinction from amherst college and harvard law school and by nineteen twenty nine had become an associate professor and vice dean at the howard law school in washington

houston confidently formulated an idea or a powerful legal id or the americans' faith of his society could always progress in the war years faith the legal system was the place to start he planned to bring the entire framework of racial segregation before the supreme court for constitutional review it was a wall along a misconception houston's plan calls for building up simultaneous sleep an army of dedicated civil rights warriors and a series of carefully chosen legal precedence for desegregation its position about how would law school used to work hard for his first goal of developing a core of working lawyers needed for the court battles he foresaw and many of the howard men trained in this period became famous naacp lawyers the best known of all is thurgood marshall you had

the naacp legal staff for twenty one years nineteen thirty five houston was appointed a special counsel for the naacp and have the opportunity to unfold the second aspect of these plants houston skiing for gaining a constitutional review of segregation sit on the simple why barrow beginning with the strongest cases graduate and professional education law seemed ideal many southern states in the nineteen thirties provided no question a professional education funding goes whatsoever you have to forestall the segregation many these states provide scholarships the talented negroes to attend grad schools outside of the state what i'm madison or say english literature a space own legal system a sport only in the particular state so any major warning to pass the bar and practice in the particular state obviously

was at a definite disadvantages you're not trained in that southern state for them or any judge could personally understand the requirements for a first rate legal education after all the judge had gone to law school and sell their own small and deliberate he's just careful attack on legal education had a special elegant suit included a feature of that community of interest that is is some law schools once the segregated were trying more lawyers the letter to her days the first case was in nineteen thirty six when maryland's highest a tribunal world that part of state scholarships could not replaced in state legal facilities for negros the first skirmish in one the next case reached the united states supreme court itself for games a negro want to attend his native state's law school with missouri state courts denied his petitions for admission the

supreme court are to reverse these rulings in nineteen thirty eight and denied the university of missouri the right to exclude gains the professor's court campaign had been launched successfully houston gave up his post as the naacp special counsel in nineteen forty leading the student marshal in full charge but he maintained a guiding hand over the legal campaign as it spread step by step the many areas of discrimination just himself was not destined to see the full fruition of his strategy he died at the age of fifty four in april nineteen fifty just six weeks before two major supreme court breakthroughs in graduate education and just four years before the nineteen fifty four school desegregation ruling distanced were sight in the nineteen thirties is all the more remarkable when one considers the prior history of the supreme court's decisions involving the negro especially during the years

eighteen seventy six the nineteenth and racial discrimination against integral often receive supreme court sanctioned the heat of the civil war and reconstruction still remain when the thirteenth fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to our constitution will retain their authors were direct and forceful charles sumner was one of the sponsors of this key passage of the fourteenth amendment no shall make or enforce any law which shall not really the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the united states nor shall any state the private and the verses are life liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws can you imagine words more effectively chosen to command

complete equality for all persons under the law this land and yet this straightforward guaranteeing was largely american distorted for third of a century brad nation's highest court once the civil war ended and the abolitionist spirit subsided this breen court in the rest of the weary north turned its back on the many thorny problems related to the protection of the ex slaves civil rights let's look more closely at the record of supreme court cases over these years it breaks down into three different eras the segregationist era the preparatory era and the desegregation era now the segregationist period of supreme court decisions started in eighteen seventy six with chief justice marsha and weight presiding with only a few exceptions the white court repeatedly ruled both state and federal civil rights laws as unconstitutional as in the cruickshank reese and the current

decisions and the most famous of these cases civil rights cases of eighteen at three in these the high court found the nineteen seventy five federal statute requiring no discrimination in the use of public accommodations to be unconstitutional on the grounds that needed the thirteenth north fourteenth amendment's gave congress the right to pass laws against individuals john harlem filed his usual long vigorous dissent negro leaders weren't raged one remark that manning was though as if they'd been baptized nice water another described the decision as a stab in the back southern white racist were late in the court's decision was announced during a performance of the laptop or the audience broke into city thunder of applause a newspaper man described as the loudest ever heard in the opera that's actually the aladdin's appreciated racial separation more than they get up for

the dipper down an emphasis of the way court had attempted some of the white south into setting up the beginnings of racial segregation under the next chief justice no real for this temptation to the site became an open invitation wild whites court had denied the constitutionality of desegregation legislation the phone records from eighty at eight tonight in cannes frowning constitutional a series of early southern states segregation laws as in mississippi and the berea college versus kentucky case and in plessy what's most important race decision was this plessy versus ferguson decision in at ninety six homer plessy is seven eighths white and one a negro by birth had been arrested for riding in a rail car reserved for whites and the new louisiana

law i see what the court the kind that the state's allegations that he violated both the thirteenth in the fourteenth amendment's about louisiana courts and the supreme court denied his plea with only justice harlan dissenting with his sperm rejoinder our constitution is colorblind since segregationist and they want to believe that race relations the decisions began and then with a single case let's look more carefully at this icy opinion in the first place it was not as we've seen the first race decision the day it reversed a series of early decisions that had real state was with six basically classify citizens by race to be unconstitutional moreover the price opinion ventured into the realms of psychology and sociology its contention that legislation is our last tour eradicate racial instincts and overcome natural affinities was really statement that then current social logical dictum that

state weighs cannot change for ways and its concepts of racial instincts and natural affinities legal terms they lifted directly from the social darwinism then involved in social science the boise case set up a segregationist one winner of separate but equal that is separate racial facilities may be required by state law providing and that the facilities are equal but the precise legal formula of course became in practice separate but very unequal then the placid decision the high court was merely accentuating the kind of the times it was manufacturing for the turn of the century mark the period of frequent lynchings and a widespread belief in white racial superiority won it in ten however the temple was changing and the total membership of the supreme court changed with the supreme court period on race was beginning a

transition lawyer the prepared the ground for the desegregation decisions are recent years interestingly this the territory year began with a southern borne chief justice and ended with the next president as chief justice edward white was a louisiana sugar plant wheat for as a boy in the confederate army he was far in nineteen twenty one by ex president william pesce with only a few exceptions they're leadership saw a liberal decisions that one strupp they own in bay versus alabama nineteen eleven in alabama law than enforce ph two attempted to protect the right to vote in when mosely myers vs anderson and nixon versus herndon are holding both the infamous grandfather pauses and the white primaries to be unconstitutional three verses or lean

against an invisible ordinances week barring residential segregation and four only legal lynching verdict by insisting in more verses didn't see that in the king's man must have a trial freeze some odd nominations they are the third and last of our supreme court periods is the desegregation career beginning in nineteen thirty when charles he's returned to the high places chief justice following the careful blueprint drawn by houston and intel has made impressive legal games during this year in six key areas in due process cases for example the court has consistently rules but the exclusion of negroes and other minorities from juries is presumptive evidence of discrimination in the employment and trade unions are the court has agreed that states have the part of the fourteenth amendment to prohibit racial discrimination by

labor unions in a series of public accommodations and services cases the court has held that interstate segregation is it unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce and that negroes cannot be rightfully denied an unoccupied pollman see on unoccupied dining car seat in two cases in nineteen forty eight in nineteen fifty three the court ruled that race he restricted housing covenants would not be supported by state court action the major legal breakthrough on voting came in nineteen forty four when the high court reversed itself and acquired that state political conventions and party memberships were state actions enhance under the fourteenth amendment could not discriminate against negro citizens will a few are skeptical about the boat in such decisions to influence society i think it's worthwhile a

point out that the number of negroes registered to vote in this i have tripled from nineteen forty to nineteen forty six largely because of the nineteen forty four supreme court decision of course areas like alabama mississippi are still are stripping them admirable finally continuously new advances have been made in the field of education to deliberate plan of houston's took a generation to achieve its goal but the school desegregation case a blast destroyed the all separate clinical formula established in the eighty ninety six plus a case the supreme court decisions are conditioning handed down on monday it's so on that inevitable monday may seventeen nineteen fifty four chief justice or wine raid in a unanimous decision these momentous words we conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal

has no place separate educational facilities are inherently unequal the same day says nasa did not like the nineteen fifty four ruling listen to the reactions to this decision individuals are not fret about that school math if you really think about at the supreme court has no right to rule on desegregation what if there was anybody in washington to tell us what to do it yet the congress what the coach you have to say anything about it this contention that the supreme court has no right to loan segregation ignores history we call that segregation is a formal system came into being at the turn of the century at the invitation two major supreme court decisions da da three civil rights cases and plessy versus ferguson and it seems

logical and if you permit me a terrible pollen what the log in with the law can taketh away we spent the whole history courses more and talk about the supreme court school decision now most of the classes southerners in the way we feel about it is that the school runs a more sociological been legal in fact one of the three long as it didn't think it was real hard this second charge that the nineteen fifty four decision was so shy logical and not legal is just strange when considering the strong so so it will influence in the separate but equal opinion of plastic save for the fact that the nineteen fifty four decision at a footnote to social science research the decision is making ninety six and nineteen fifty four were equally social lives in fact they moved by necessity mistaken for campy effect of the

decision on society and the best knowledge of art society comes in social science in this limited and special sense you see all supreme court decisions are influenced the sociology the principal difference in the two decisions use of social science is that their social logical conclusions are different like physics during the same period social science has radically revised many of its theories on the basis of rapid advances in this century supreme court chose a sneaky punch they come up with that decision on our backs we didn't even have a chance to get ready you should be able to get away with something like that in this country now right on america this one argument that the nineteen fifty four school decision had no precedent schemer of the blue collar helpless as unprepared also ignores the past we've seen that the supreme court's rulings against racial discrimination can be traced directly

back to nineteen eleven through the preparatory here and through a generation long desegregation year that is what this remarkable neighbor illegal gains in a variety of areas or over allegedly said for my native says that it had expected a decision for some time based on the advice of the region's more state warriors southern states began desperately improving their negro schools in an attempt to approximate related to a separate what truly equal education but as a segregationist charges are weak their resistance to desegregation case on what has happened since that inevitable main monday in nineteen fifty four how has the process been arrested and what can we expect in the nineteen sixties we'll see what the man now whole strauss used is all post as head of the naacp legal staff listed jack greenberg has to say following the supreme court's nineteen fifty four decision outlawing

segregation in schools many communities proceeded to effectively comply with the court's ruling wilmington delaware baltimore maryland washington dc louisville st louis kansas city and other communities which until that time had had only grow your whites who proceeded to successfully integrate them other states resorted to what was called massive resistance virginia passed a resolution of into position stating that it was not bound by the fourteenth amendment of the united states constitution mississippi have the same thing other states followed suit so i think virginia after however was unsuccessful and as everyone knows all effort in virginia to stave off the power of the federal courts failed this too will be the result in mississippi because history proves that no stable community can war against the constitution massive resistance is not the real problem the real problem is that of tokenism were what i call white collar crime

that is the denial of their segregation the foot dragging on the kind of thing that is more akin to tax evasion and embezzlement in bankruptcy for all of the kind of thing that relies upon wearing down the opponent's and delaying cases until the needlepoint this graduate from school rather than of frankly giving them their constitutional rights which the supreme court says they deserve examples of this kind of thing are cases in which enabled charles refused transferred to a white school because he's said to be too intelligent and he is the brightest child is negro question has said he would not be the bride's gjelten is why class and therefore would become well adjusted in the same community a negro child who is not as bright as this first one i mentioned will also be refused to transfer on the ground that he's not sufficiently intelligence the same time we've had a case also involving children were considered two well adjusted to transfer and children were considered not sufficiently well adjusted transfer

this kind of thing involves expenditure of days and weeks of lawyers time thousands of dollars and legal costs fees travel appeals current trouble and so for this is the kind of thing that we're up against and the various communities in which we are fighting segregation this is why the segregation by now has proceeded to an extent that we after approximately six or seven years following the supreme court decision there is only approximately six or seven percent of negro children now informally all white school the white collar crime type of approach is not confined to school segregation or we find that in cases of transportation to southern states which have been told that they may no longer segregate passengers on buses have been some instances pass city ordinances saying the driver may rearrange passengers on the bus according to weight and balance and then of course he puts

all the negro passengers in the back and requires the white passengers to sit in the front knowing full well that what he's doing is unconstitutional as a result however they must be a long and expensive lost to enforce a constitutional right of the people who were segregated under disguise the same sort of things happen in the case of the freedom riders everyone knows in the southern states to knew that they could not segregate the freedom riders on the basis of race consequently they arrested them for so called breach of the peace in instances where there was no breach of the peace only a breach of segregation custom now what can be done about this sort of thing where two kinds of things one is that there must be it an approach on behalf of the lawyers and this is the thing which the naacp legal defense fund is committed of fighting every case whether and whether it involves one child or two or three or five or the way through the courts to an ultimate successful conclusion this is necessary because the negro community in the states must be shown that we stand

completely behind them and the white community must learn that by this type of foot dragging and resistance it cannot achieve the ultimate children go secondly the other thing which must be done has been done and is crucial is the community action which has been evidence in the sit ins and the freedom rides people are fed up with the foot dragging the sort of thing that results in six percent desegregation over a period of six years and consequently they are expressing themselves in the way of a best know why protest demonstrations by saying that they're not satisfied and they're fed up and so if we want to look ahead to the remainder of the sixties and to see what forms the desegregation movement will take during a period of time i predict that they will be to fall they will be a grueling trench warfare kind of fight in the courts involving one child two children five children until we reach a point where they will again be another

massive legal grateful and there will also be a community the community action type of protest demonstration region which is exemplified by the sit ins and freedom the vitality of any democracy could be measured by its ability to correct its failures probably glimpse of the legal history of desegregation shows that this history can stay in as a tribute to the viability of our democratic institutions the passionate faith or the grandson of runaway slaves had in our democracy is being vindicated charles hamilton houston was orderly step by step campaign was predicated on the assumption that our legal system could and would aid the negro and his struggle to obtain his rights as a first class system and the quiet faith and determination of his successes such as a guest mr greenberg indicates that houston's

dream will be carried through to completion nice nice it's been nice so says nice boys

yes week has been steel production costs were provided in part with the assistance of grants from the anti defamation league of b'nai b'rith mcconnell school boston and claudia be mr easel stone foundation this is an eighty eight national educational television