David K. Fremon - The Jim Crow Laws and Racism in United States History

Segregation

In May 1954, the United States Supreme Court handed down its famous Brown v. Board of Education decision. The case was a challenge to "Jim Crow" laws in the South, in existence since the end of the Civil War, that separated almost all public places by race. The Supreme Court's rejection of the notion of "separate but equal" facilities legitimized the civil rights movement in America.

In The Jim Crow Laws and Racism in United States History, author David K. Fremon traces the history of racial discrimination from the end of the Civil War through the Jim Crow era. Highlighting efforts to promote racial equality, Fremon shows how segregation made the South a caste system, with separate facilitiesincluding water fountains, waiting rooms, hospitals, and cemeteriesfor whites and blacks.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David K. Fremon has written many magazine and newspaper articles, as well as books, on historical topics. Several of his books show past injustices and attempts to correct those injustices.

Separate facilities for whites and blacks were the rule in many places throughout the Jim Crow era. This photograph taken during the Great Depression in the 1930s, shows that segregated theaters were still common even after the turn of the twentieth century.

Hundreds of people streamed into the United States Supreme Court building on May 17, 1954. Some of them saw the words Equal Justice Under Law carved in marble on the front of the building. That day, they would learn if those words held true.

The United States Supreme Court seldom announced in advance what cases it would decide. The Court gave its decision on cases on Mondays when it was in session. One Supreme Court case aroused more attention than all the others: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Linda Brown, an eight-year-old African-American girl in Topeka, Kansas, wanted to go to a nearby public school. Topekas board of education, which segregated (separated) students by race, refused the request. It claimed that Linda received an education equal to that of white students, even if she did not attend school with them. Browns parents sued the district. This case would affect the entire nation. The issue was simple: Would black students be allowed to attend public schools with whites?

The Court, as usual, started at noon. After an hour of routine business, Chief Justice Earl Warren spoke the words everyone was waiting for. He declared, I have for announcement the judgment and opinion of the Court in Number One Brown et al. versus Board of Education of Topeka et al.

Thurgood Marshall, hopeful but not certain, watched the justices. Marshall, a shrewd, folksy black lawyer, had been an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1936. He had argued more than fifty cases before the Supreme Court, winning most of them. He led the legal team that represented the Brown family, the plaintiffs in the case.

John W. Davis represented the Topeka Board of Education. The seventy-nine-year-old attorney, who had been the Democratic presidential nominee in 1924, was no stranger to the highest court. This was his one hundred fortieth appearance before the Supreme Court. It would be his most famous case.

Chief Justice Earl Warren read the Courts decision. He began by describing the background of the case. Warren mentioned the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guaranteed equal rights to all citizens. He discussed the Supreme Courts 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which permitted separate but equal facilities for whites and blacks. He mentioned previous court cases regarding educational facilities.

Warren noted that, unlike many school systems in the South, Topeka had schools that appeared to be of equal quality for both races. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education, he said. Then he asked the critical question: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities?

The gallery listened intently as Warren answered, We believe it does. He added, To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.

If it was not the most important decision in the history of the Court, it was very close, commented Justice Stanley Reed. For African-American children and adults, it marked a point of liberation. For years, Jim Crow, or segregation, laws had discriminated against blacks. The Courts decision would help lead to the laws downfall.

The ruling met great opposition, especially in the South. Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina said he was shocked by the decision. The Southern states would eventually pass more than four hundred fifty laws to try to prevent schools from carrying out the Courts decision.

Other people saw the Brown decision quite differently. An African-American marine, upon hearing the verdict, said:

My inner emotions must have been approximate to the Negro slaves when they first heard about the Emancipation Proclamation [Pres. Abraham Lincolns 1863 statement that would free the slaves in the South during the Civil War].... On this momentous night of May 17, 1954... I experienced a loyalty that I had never felt before. I was sure that this was the beginning of a new era in American democracy.

The Supreme Courts decision would change the lives of millions, as it began to destroy the system of Jim Crow segregation that had existed almost since the end of the Civil War.

On April 9, 1865, Southern General Robert E. Lee signed a treaty with Union General Ulysses S. Grant that would lead to the conclusion of the American Civil War. The Confederate states would have to honor Union President Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. The Souths slaves would soon be legally free.

Freedom did not arrive at the same time and in the same way for all black Southerners. In large cities such as Richmond, Virginia, the word came instantly. Some white plantation owners, however, did not notify their former slaves of their freedom until months after the wars end.

At first, some freedmen (newly freed men and women) were led to believe that they would be given land on their former masters plantations. President Andrew Johnson, squashed such hopes. His May 29, 1865, Proclamation of Amnesty pardoned almost all former Confederate soldiers. The law allowed them to take back any lands that might be occupied by African Americans.

Landless and poor, most without skills or jobs, former slaves could leave their plantations, but where would they go? Some set out to reunite with family members who had been sold by their former masters. Others went in search of better opportunities. This mobility disrupted life on the plantations. Former slave owners were used to having a stable, undemanding workforce. Emancipation changed the rules of life.