Dixon V. Alabama Case Summary

514 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: the Civil Rights Movement in US

Case name: Dixon v. Alabama Full legal citation: 294 F.2d 150; 1961 U.S. App. LEXIS 3767, 1961 Case Facts: On February 25, 1960, several Black students from Alabama State College engaged in a sit-in in a segregated lunch counter located in the Montgomery, Alabama county courthouse. In response, the lunch counter employees shut down the restaurant and called the police. After some questioning outside of the restaurant, the police released the students. Due to the lunch counter’s proximity to his office, the governor of Alabama became aware of the students’ involvement in the protest and contacted the president of Alabama State College, Dr. Trenholm, recommending Trenholm discipline the students for their participation. In the two days following the …show more content…

Trenholm, informally warned students to stop participating in these meetings and demonstrations, stating that the demonstrations were inhibiting the college’s ability to conduct business and students’ ability to study. On March 1, 1960, approximately 600 students from Alabama State College gathered at the State Capitol to sing hymns and make speeches in protest of Dr. Trenholm’s warning. The following day, the State Board of Education met and both the governor of the State of Alabama and Dr. Trenholm informed the board of the demonstrations, naming several Alabama State College students as “ringleaders.” Based on the recommendations of the governor and Dr. Trenholm, the board voted to expel nine students (including the six plaintiffs) and place an additional 20 students on probation. Dr. Trenholm notified the 29 students on March 4 and 5, 1960 with letters. The college did not file formal charges against the expelled students or grant the students hearings at which they could defend themselves. The expelled students filed suit in the federal court system claiming the college had violated their right to due process. The state judge dismissed their case, and the plaintiffs filed an

Show More
Related

  • Essay On Boston Busing

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    The decision to integrate Boston schools in the 1970’s created negative race relations and later fueled a political debate that would change schools across the country. Most desegregation efforts in the United States began with the case of Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. The case ruled that segregation on the basis of race was prohibited because it violated citizen’s rights under the Constitution. On June 21, 1974 in the case of Morgan vs. Hennigan, Judge Garret made a ruling that accused the Boston School Committee of engaging in racial segregation. “This ruling later would serve to fuel one of the prominent controversies embedded in our nation’s ongoing struggle for racial desegregation.” The busing policy created extreme acts of violence, invaded personal freedoms, hindered students’ education and

    Read More

  • Brown v. Board of Education

    1307 Words  | 3 Pages

    The case started in Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school seven blocks from her house, but the principal of the school refused simply because the child was black. Brown went to McKinley Burnett, the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help (All Deliberate Speed pg 23). The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long wanted to challenge segregation in public schools. The NAACP was looking for a case like this because they figured if they could just expose what had really been going on in "separate but equal society" that the circumstances really were not separate but equal, bur really much more disadvantaged to the colored people, that everything would be changed. The NAACP was hoping that if they could just prove this to society that the case would uplift most of the separate but equal facilities. The hopes of this case were for much more than just the school system, the colored people wanted to get this case to the top to abolish separate but equal.

    Read More

  • Sweatt vs. Painter

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    On February 26, 1946 Herman Sweatt, who had excellent academic credentials and met all standards for acceptance into the university, was denied admission into the University of Texas Law School because of his African American race. At the time, the University of Texas had a separate law school for African Americans to attend because segregation was still widely accepted in the United States. The University of Texas Law School had 16 full-time professors, 3 part-time professors, 850 students, and over 65,000 volumes in their library along with an excellent reputation ("Find Law"). Meanwhile the separate college for African Americans had 5 full-time professors, 23 attending students, and only 16,500 volumes to study (“Find Law”). The inequality between the two schools was obvious, and many applicants began to question change among the university. Herman, along with many others, denied their acceptance into the separate college and decided to fight for equal education. Being on the verging years of civil rights and sixties revolution, the student’s will power was driven by their years of being unequal in their cruel society. These denials would prove to be the beginning of a long and stressful road that would later influence the decision of Brown vs. Board of Education (Cantu).

    Read More

  • Minersville School District Vs Gobitis Essay

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    Because attending school in the state was compulsory, they were forced to attend private schools, creating a financial burden for their father. The father brought a suit against the Board of Education on behalf of the children and himself. The lower Courts ruled that compelling the children to stand and salute the flag was unconstitutional. The Board of Education appealed the decision and the lower court’s ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court.

    Read More

  • The Tinker V. Des Moines Case

    570 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Tinker v. Des Moines case was a very important case in history. It changed a big part of school district rules. The Tinker’s were a family with two children who attended Des Moines Independent Community School District in the sixties. The Tinker’s had two kids, John F. Tinker and Mary Beth Tinker. One day the Tinker kids and Christopher Eckhardt, another Des Moines student, wore black armbands in a silent protest against the government’s policies in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Both Tinker children and Christopher Eckhardt were suspended for their protest. When the Tinker and Eckhardt tried to fight the suspensions the District Court said it was within the school’s power to suspend the children but the parents knew that wasn’t right. So, the Tinkers and Eckhardts moved their case to the Supreme Court.

    Read More

  • Success and Failure of the Civil Rights Movement

    1574 Words  | 4 Pages

    Success was a big part of the Civil Rights Movement. Starting with the year 1954, there were some major victories in favor of African Americans. In 1954, the landmark trial Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas ruled that segregation in public education was unfair. This unanimous Supreme Court decision overturned the prior Plessy vs. Ferguson case during which the “separate but equal” doctrine was created and abused. One year later, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. launched a bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama after Ms. Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat in the “colored section”. This boycott, which lasted more than a year, led to the desegregation of buses in 1956. Group efforts greatly contributed to the success of the movement. This is not only shown by the successful nature of the bus boycott, but it is shown through the success of Martin Luther King’s SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The conference was notable for peacefully protesting, nonviolence, and civil disobedience. Thanks to the SCLC, sit-ins and boycotts became popular during this time, adding to the movement’s accomplishments. The effective nature of the sit-in was shown during 1960 when a group of four black college students sat down at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in hopes of being served. While they were not served the first time they commenced their sit-in, they were not forced to leave the establishment; their lack of response to the heckling...

    Read More

  • Ain't Scared of your Jails

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the first documented incidents of the sit-ins for the civil rights movement was on February 1, 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee. Four college African-Americans sat at a lunch counter and refused to leave. During this time, blacks were not allowed to sit at certain lunch counters that were reserved for white people. These black students sat at a white lunch counter and refused to leave. This sit-in was a direct challenge to southern tradition. Trained in non-violence, the students refused to fight back and later were arrested by Nashville police. The students were drawn to activist Jim Lossen and his workshops of non-violence. The non-violent workshops were training on how to practice non-violent protests. John Lewis, Angela Butler, and Diane Nash led students to the first lunch counter sit-in. Diane Nash said, "We were scared to death because we didn't know what was going to happen." For two weeks there were no incidences with violence. This all changed on February 27, 1960, when white people started to beat the students. Nashville police did nothing to protect the black students. The students remained true to their training in non-violence and refused to fight back. When the police vans arrived, more than eighty demonstrators were arrested and summarily charged for disorderly conduct. The demonstrators knew they would be arrested. So, they planned that as soon as the first wave of demonstrators was arrested, a second wave of demonstrators would take their place. If and when the second wave of demonstrators were arrested and removed, a third would take their place. The students planned for multiple waves of demonstrators.

    Read More

  • The March on Washington - August 28, 1963

    1353 Words  | 3 Pages

    One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.

    Read More

  • Deaf President Now Research Paper

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    The entirety of the protester’s demands were as follows. The immediate resignation of the elected president and replacement of a deaf president. The immediate resignation of Jane Bassett Spilman, chair of the Board of Trustees, who apparently used offensive ableist language. 51% of the Board of Trustees must be deaf, giving them the majority. No punishments for the students or faculty members involved in the protest.

    Read More

  • Melba Pattillo Beals', Warriors Don't Cry

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education that schools needed to integrate and provide equal education for all people and it was unconstitutional for the state to deny certain citizens this opportunity. Although this decision was a landmark case and meant the schools could no longer deny admission to a child based solely on the color of their skin. By 1957, most schools had began to slowly integrate their students, but those in the deep south were still trying to fight the decision. One of the most widely known instances of this happening was at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. It took the school district three years to work out an integration plan. The board members and faculty didn't like the fact that they were going to have to teach a group of students that were looked down upon and seen as "inferior" to white students. However, after much opposition, a plan was finally proposed. The plan called for the integration to happen in three phases. First, during the 1957-1958 school year, the senior high school would be integrated, then after completion at the senior high level, the junior high would be integrated, and the elementary levels would follow in due time. Seventeen students were chosen from hundreds of applicants to be the first black teenagers to begin the integration process. The town went into an uproar. Many acts of violence were committed toward the African-Americans in the city. Racism and segregation seemed to be on the rise. Most black students decid...

    Read More

  • Brown V. Board Of Education Case

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    She and her sister made a great daily commute to their “colored” school. Linda was denied admission to a summer school that was closer to her home because of her race. This was legal due to the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 which allowed for segregation of public facilities. The Browns felt that depriving their daughters of a better education was unconstitutional and it did not provide them with equal protection under the law. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the Browns and the Court found segregation in public schooling should not be included in the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson. This ruling established the civil rights idea that “separate-but-equal” was not equal at all. As a result, it was mandated that desegregation in schools would commence with “all deliberate speed” (insert landmark cases). However, Many schools, especially in the south, defied this ruling. In Little Rock, Arkansas, at Central High School, a group of nine high school students were set to attend the previously all white school. Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called the state national guard to prevent these students from entering the school. President Eisenhower angrily deployed federal troops the walk the teens into school under armed guard. The public display of racism and inequality fueled the sprouting civil rights movement. Nevertheless, The debate continues more than sixty years later over how to fight racial

    Read More

  • Hazing Cases and Qualified Immunity

    1745 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... crying.” The plaintiff alleges violations of his constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988 (2000) and civil rights conspiracy in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 (2000). The defendant moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety on the basis of qualified immunity. The court dismissed the state law claims but found that the defendant had in fact violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights due to the fact that “a state actor, through his agents, cannot randomly beat a student.” The defendant was also denied dismissal of the claim based on qualified immunity because a state actor cannot arbitrarily commit violence against a student. The plaintiff was able to show that Coach Edmundson’s conduct did violate his constitutional right of substantive due process to be free from the infliction of malicious corporal punishment by school official.

    Read More

  • Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone

    2443 Words  | 5 Pages

    Oliver Brown, father of Linda Brown decided that his third grade daughter should not have to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard just to get to the bus stop before she could even get to the separate Negro school for her area. He attempted to enroll her in the white public school only three blocks from their home, but her enrollment was denied due to her race. The browns believed this was a violation of their rights, and took their case to the courts. This wasn’t the first time that blacks found their constitutional rights violated. After the civil war, laws were passed to continue the separation of blacks and whites throughout the southern states, starting with the Jim Crow laws which officially segregated the whites from the black. It wasn’t until 1896 in Plessy vs. Ferguson that black people even began to see equality as an option. Nothing changed in the world until 1954 when the historical ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education that anything changed. Until then, all stores, restaurants, schools and public places were deemed ‘separate but equal’ through the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling in 1896. Many cases just like the Brown vs. Board of Education were taken to the Supreme Court together in a class action suite. The world changed when nine justices made the decision to deem segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

    Read More

  • The Selma-Montgomery March

    2478 Words  | 5 Pages

    Enraged with the death of Jim, around 650 protestors gathered again on March 7 and attempted a march through Selma to Montgomery, ignoring Governor Wallace’s orders not to march. They again met with state troopers and a crueler response. A wall of state troopers was formed at US Highway 80 to stop the march. After refusing the orders from the police to stop the march, the troopers took action. The prot...

    Read More

  • Student Protest movement

    1663 Words  | 4 Pages

    refused to leave when told to do so. The next day university officials took the names of

    Read More

More about Dixon V. Alabama Case Summary

Open Document