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A newspaper in education Supplement to THE WASHINGTON TIMES
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WEDNESDAY • AUGUST 28 • 2013
Jim Crow
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, Kansas
ended legal racial segregation in public schools.
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste sys-
tem that operated primarily, but not exclusively,
in Southern and border states between 1877 and
the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series
of strict laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow,
African Americans were considered second-
class citizens. Jim Crow laws legitimized racism.
Christian and political leaders preached about the
dangers of having an integrated society. All major
societal institutions reflected and supported the
oppression of African Americans.
Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of
everyday life.
Examples of Jim Crow laws from some
southern states included:
•
Education:
The schools for white children
and the schools for Negro children shall be
conducted separately. – Florida
•
Textbooks:
Books shall not be interchangeable
between the white and colored schools, but
shall continue to be used by the race first using
them. — North Carolina
•
Lunch Counters:
No persons, firms, or
corporations, who or which furnish meals to
passengers at station restaurants or station
eating houses, in times limited by common
carriers of said passengers, shall furnish said
meals to white and colored passengers in the
same room, or at the same table, or at the same
counter. – South Carolina
•
Nurses:
No person or corporation shall require
any white female nurse to nurse in wards or
rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in
which Negro men are placed. – Alabama
•
Intermarriage:
All marriages between a white
person and a Negro, or between a white person
and a person of Negro descent to the fourth
generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohib-
ited.
– Florida
Examples of Jim Crow etiquette norms
show how inclusive and pervasive they
were:
• A black male could not offer to shake hands
with a white male.
• Black and white people were not supposed to
eat together.
• Under no circumstance was a black male to
offer to light the cigarette of a white female.
• Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect (Mr., Mrs., miss, sir,
or ma'am) when referring to blacks.
Learn more at:
Source: Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State
University
(Researched by Jodi Pushkin, Tampa Bay Times)
In 1896 the controversial
Plessy v. Ferguson
Supreme Court decision made racial segregation
in public facilities, including schools, legal. It
allowed states to have separate schools for blacks
and whites as long as they were of equal quality.
The term the Court used was “separate but equal.”
The schools were separate, but unequal in every
way. Black schools had poor quality buildings,
fewer teachers, and less financial funding than
white schools.
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court
reversed that decision, proclaiming, “In the field
of public education ‘separate but equal’ has no
place.” The historic ruling in
Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka
overturned the Court’s Plessy
ruling. The landmark case was a victory for civil
rights after a decades-long legal battle waged by
the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and residents of several
communities.
Although people often associate the case with
Linda Brown, a young girl whose parent, Rev-
erend Oliver Brown (the source of the name of
the decision), sued so that she could attend an
all-white school,
Brown v. Board
actually con-
sisted of five separate cases. Originating in four
states and the District of Columbia, all began as
grassroots efforts to either enroll black students in
all-white schools or obtain improved facilities for
black students. By the fall of 1952, the Supreme
Court had accepted the cases independently on
appeal and decided to hear arguments collec-
tively. The NAACP's chief counsel, Thurgood
Marshall—who was later appointed to the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1967—argued the case before
the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs.
On May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren
read the unanimous Supreme Court decision
(excerpt): "We come then to the question pre-
sented: Does segregation of children in public
schools solely on the basis of race, even though
the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors
may be equal, deprive the children of the minor-
ity group of equal educational opportunities? We
believe that it does...We conclude that in the field
of public education the doctrine of 'separate but
equal' has no place. Separate educational facili-
ties are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold
that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated
for whom the actions have been brought are, by
reason of the segregation complained of, deprived
of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment.”
None of these cases would have been possible
without individuals who were courageous enough
to take a stand against the inequalities of segrega-
tion. Today, several of the schools represented in
Brown v. Board
of Education
stand as historic reminders of the struggle to abolish
segregation in public education.
Bus station in Durham, NC May 1940.
Credit: Library of Congress
George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit congratulating
each other on the Brown decision, May 17, 1954.
Credit: Library of Congress, New York World-Telegram and Sun Collection
