1950s Flashcards
Describe the outcomes of the Brown vs Topeka case (6)
With the help of the NAACP, the Topeka Board of Education was taken to court and the case ended up in the US Supreme Court
The court ruled that the ‘separated but equal facilities’ law had to be changed as separate facilities usually weren’t equal and all schools had to be desegregated
Boost to civil rights, highest, most respected court decided that segregation in schools was unconstitutional/ illegal
Could lead to other public places being desegregated
Describe the 1950s southern white resistance (6)
Refused to desegregate schools
‘States had the right to decide’
Violence, lynchings and beatings of black people which had declined since the 20s increased again, more riots/ bombings and even murders of NAACP supporters
1955: 14 year old Emmett Till brutally murdered while staying in Mississippi (white murderers acquitted: failure to punish focused attention of the US and the world on the terrible injustice that southern black people faced, ‘a little nobody who shook the world’)
Describe protests on transport in the 1950s (6)
Dec 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give her seat (in black section) up for a white man, she was arrested and fined, local secretary of NAACP
local black community (led by Martin Luther King) supported her by staging a 24 hour bus boycott
Didn’t stop until company to agreed to seat all passengers on a first come first served basis
Led to the white community to destroy homes of leading black people (inc MLK)
13 months after boycott began, bus company gave in:
1) Peaceful protest brought change
2) black people made up 75% of business
3) 1956: Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is illegal
Describe the Little Rock case (6)
Sep 1957, little rock Central high school, 9 black students tried to take their places at high school
Despite it being their legal right to attend, the state governor sent the national guard to stop them
Black community took the governor to court, national guard withdrew yet now black students left totally unprotected against angry mobs of white students and adults
Eisenhower sent 1000 power troopers to protect them for the next 12months, deep rooted hatred
Another victory for peaceful protest
By 1960: 2,600 black children out of 2million went to integrated schools
Describe the Brown vs Topeka case (4)
1954, 20 US states had segregated schools
Kinda Brown had to walk 20 blocks to her school despite there being a school for white people just 2 blocks away
With the help of the NAACP, the Topeka Board of Education was taken to court and the case ended up in the US Supreme Court
The court ruled that the ‘separated but equal facilities’ law had to be changed as separate facilities usually weren’t equal and all schools had to be desegregated
The importance of education
Education-> qualified-> employment-> money-> freedom
