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Brown vs board of education
Brown vs board of education
Brown vs board of education
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Melba Patillo changed history by enduring one of the first high school integration in history. Without Melba's bravery and endurance we would not have black people and white people together in the same building, much less in the same schools. Melba and the other eight black students spent one gruesome year at Central High, which is located in Little Rock, Arkansas. They not only tried to socialize and study, they had to go to press conferences concerning integration and were forced to ride in a car driven by soldiers. They had to be alert every second for the entire year in order to survive. These nine kids, also known as the Arkansas Nine, have showed the world that they can beat segregation.
Nineteen hundred fifty seven was a horrible time in Little Rock, Arkansas. Segregationists were opposed to the blacks having any power and threw racial words at black people. There was a large lawsuit about integration in Little Rock in 1952 that wanted to have black students attend an all white school. Unfortunately, a petition was filed opposing black kids going to an all white school. Miraculously ,May 17, 1954 was the surprising day that the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Their ruling stated that segregating public schools made them unequal and was illegal. Segregationists did whatever it was necessary to stop the integration in Central High School. Gov. Faubus tried to stall the integration by having two hundred witnesses testtify in opposition. Fortunately with the help of the NAACP, the court decided to make the integration work in 1957.
The school year was exhausting for the Arkansas Nine. The white students had to be mean to the Arkansas Nine or be threatened by segregationists if they helped the Arkansas Nine. Melba, One of the Arkansas Nine, was a strong warrior even as a baby. She was born on Pearl Harbor Day with a scalp infection. The nurse did not tell Mother Lois how to get rid of had the infection, because she said We do not coddle with n---------s. If it was not for the janitor eavesdropping on the doctor telling the nurse about the cure, and telling Mother Lois, Melba would not have lived to become a warrior at the school.
Melba Pattillo Beals book, Warriors Don’t Cry, is a memoir about her experience as one of the Little Rock Nine. From a very young age Melba sees the many problems with segregation. Throughout the book she recalls several memories involving the unfairness and struggles that her, her family, and other African Americans had to go through in the South during the time of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.
The case started with a third-grader named Linda Brown. She was a black girl who lived just seen blocks away from an elementary school for white children. Despite living so close to that particular school, Linda had to walk more than a mile, and through a dangerous railroad switchyard, to get to the black elementary school in which she was enrolled. Oliver Brown, Linda's father tried to get Linda switched to the white school, but the principal of that school refuse to enroll her. After being told that his daughter could not attend the school that was closer to their home and that would be safer for Linda to get to and from, Mr. Brown went to the NAACP for help, and as it turned out, the NAACP had been looking for a case with strong enough merits that it could challenge the issue of segregation in pubic schools. The NAACP found other parents to join the suit and it then filed an injunction seeking to end segregation in the public schools in Kansas (Knappman, 1994, pg 466).
Board of Education, Melba Pattillo Beals will always be known as one of the first black students to go to a white school. Her race have hoped of this for years now, and the Little Rock Nine had made it with the support of the general army. People went as far as to hurt them, resulting as far for the government to support nine black students. This is what it takes to charge forward, or to hit a home run like Jackie Robinson.
In 1954, The Brown vs. The Board of Education decision made segregation in schools illegal. New York City’s attempt to integrate the schools was unsuccessful, leaving them more segregated than before.(Podair 30) By 1966, New York City’s black communities were unhappy with the Board of Education’s control of their school districts because of its repeated unsuccessful attempts at integration. Many white groups, like the Parents and Taxpayers Organization, were also frustrated with the current system and called for “The Neighborhood School.” It was their discontent that motivated the community control of the Ocean Hill Brownsville school district. Because of the city’s civil rights movement and their support from many influential people and groups, the district was granted control .(Podair 82)
Beals made history When the Governor of the State didn’t let the Blacks into the High School so the President sent the Soldier of the 101st to the state to escort them through the mob of Angry Whites. During this people shouted ugly words,, raised their fist to the Blacks, and Looked horrified of the Blacks while Beals and the Other Little Rock nine were getting escorted through the Town to the School. Beals said ‘’Some of the White people looked horrified, While others raised their fist, others shouted ugly Words,’’ Beals reaction to this is she felt sad and proud she felt proud that the country would do all of this to escort them to the school but Beals was sad that they had to go to such great lengths. Beals said that ‘’She was proud that I lived in a country that would go this far to bring justice to a little tock Girl like me but sad that they had to go to such great lengths.’’ Then the Soldiers of the 101st made a protective cocoon, and escorted them through the mob of Whites that did not want the blacks to be in there society. How this event affected the society is when Beals went to school with other Whites she broke a little more of the Color Barrier. To Conclude Melba Beals changed the mind of some of the Whites, and break the color
Despite the horrors the Nine faced in Little Rock, these nine students showed true bravery and stood up to those who tried to stop them from getting their education. They created an example to others, a beacon of hope to the oppressed African-Americans, and helped pave the way for a future without racial segregation.
All of these children had to be integrated into that high school for the good of the future. It was a huge part in the movement of segregation and all of them should be proud of what they did. Melba also did this voluntarily, not even telling her parents that she had signed up for the integration fearing that they would say no. She wanted to be just as equal as the whites and if sacrificing herself for the sake of the greater good was the way the way to go then Melba wasn’t going to let anyone stop her. They all knew what they were going into and did it for the greater good anyway. Their parents supported them all the way through expressing to them that change was
“Stuff they had in seventh grade and eighth grades, we were just getting as junior and seniors in black school” Teachers would either not have the materials to be able to teach or intentionally teach slow so the African American kids would have a more difficult time in life. At this time in the south schools were kept separate. Schools up north had already integrated prior because racism was not as much a problem as it was in the south. Little Rock was one of the first schools in Alabama to integrate black and whites into the same school. Little Rock admitted nine African American students giving it the name “The Little Rock Nine”. After the federal law was passed by the supreme court in 1964 allowing black students to go to the school of their choice, nothing happened for three long years. The governor of Alabama (Orval Faubus) employed the national guard to blockade the school only admitted white students. This went on until President Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne Division. The national guard backed off and the nine students would attend school. In the beginning it was smooth sailing. People for the most part would not pick on the blacks. This was only because an armed guard would accompany them to and from classes. As time went on there would be less and less security. People would begin to pick on the kid. Most of the time it was
Eventually, a federal court ordered Central High School in Little Rock to begin admitting black students in 1957 in order to begin the state's process of desegregation. Melba saw this as the perfect opportunity to make a difference in her hometown. She was one of nine courageous students who decided to attend the all-white Central High School. Although all the students knew it would not be easy to be the first black students to integrate, it was a lot more strenuous and difficult than anyone of them had imagined.
African Americans were among the worst treated races in the US; however, this did not stop them from fighting for the rights that so many had died for. It seemed as if black people would never be treated respectfully, but just like in comic books, there is always a hero that will fight for his people. This hero soon came to the scene and he was fierce enough to change the lives of many people. Most importantly, he broke the color barrier and created a path that would allow others to follow. However, something that was inevitable was the threats and racial remarks they had to face.
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
...t there was no real haste to desegregate schools, in Brown II the Supreme Court declared that desegregation should occur ‘with all deliberate speed’, but the events at Little Rock in 1957 proved that the whites were still persisting in segregation.
In the book Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, the author describes what her reactions and feelings are to the racial hatred and discrimination she and eight other African-American teenagers received in Little Rock, Arkansas during the desegregation period in 1957. She tells the story of the nine students from the time she turned sixteen years old and began keeping a diary until her final days at Central High School in Little Rock. The story begins by Melba talking about the anger, hatred, and sadness that is brought up upon her first return to Central High for a reunion with her eight other classmates. As she walks through the halls and rooms of the old school, she recalls the horrible acts of violence that were committed by the white students against her and her friends.
The Little Rock Nine were part of a broad movement for civil rights that started in 1865 with the 13th amendment and still continues today. Many prominent figures emerged at the forefront of the cause such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, but the Little Rock Nine advanced civil rights in education by beginning the effort to desegregate schools. Their legacy still lives on as one of bravery and perseverance.
The Supreme Court is perhaps most well known for the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. By declaring that segregation in schools was unconstitutional, Kevern Verney says a ‘direct reversal of the Plessy … ruling’1 58 years earlier was affected. It was Plessy which gave southern states the authority to continue persecuting African-Americans for the next sixty years. The first positive aspect of Brown was was the actual integration of white and black students in schools. Unfortunately, this was not carried out to a suitable degree, with many local authorities feeling no obligation to change the status quo. The Supreme Court did issue a second ruling, the so called Brown 2, in 1955. This forwarded the idea that integration should proceed 'with all deliberate speed', but James T. Patterson tells us even by 1964 ‘only an estimated 1.2% of black children ... attended public schools with white children’2. This demonstrates that, although the Supreme Court was working for Civil Rights, it was still unable to force change. Rathbone agrees, saying the Supreme Court ‘did not do enough to ensure compliance’3. However, Patterson goes on to say that ‘the case did have some impact’4. He explains how the ruling, although often ignored, acted ‘relatively quickly in most of the boarder s...