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Plessy Vs. Ferguson
Homer A. Plessy challenged an 1890 Louisiana law that required separate train cars for Black Americans and White Americans. The Supreme Court held that separate but equal facilities for White and Black railroad passengers did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Significance: Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” doctrine that would become the constitutional basis for segregation. -
Cumming Vs. Board of Education of Richmond County, State of Georgia
The Supreme Court upheld a local school board's decision to close a free public Black school due to fiscal constraints, despite the fact that the district continued to operate two free public white schools.
Significance: The Court’s opinion argued that there was no evidence in the record that the decision was based on racial discrimination and that the distribution of public funds for public education was within the discretion of school authorities. -
Berea Vs. Commonwealth of Kentucky
The Supreme Court upheld a Kentucky state law forbidding interracial instruction at all schools and colleges in the state.
Significance: The NAACP became the primary tool for the legal attack on segregation, eventually trying the Brown v. Board of Education case. -
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is Founded
W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Their mission was to eliminate lynching, and to fight racial and social injustice, primarily through legal action.
Significance: The NAACP became the primary tool for the legal attack on segregation, eventually trying the Brown v. Board of Education case. -
Gong Lum Vs. Rice
In Gong Lum v. Rice the Supreme Court held that a Mississippi school district may require a Chinese-American girl to attend a segregated Black school rather than a White school.
Significance: The Court applied the "separate but equal" formulation of Plessy v. Ferguson to the public schools. -
State of Missouri ex rel Gaines vs. Canada
The Supreme Court decided in favor of Lloyd Gaines, a Black student who had been refused admission to the University of Missouri Law School.
Significance: This case set a precedent for other states to attempt to "equalize" Black school facilities, rather than integrate them. The Court held that the state must furnish Gaines "within its borders facilities for legal education substantially equal to those which the State there offered for the persons of the white race, whether or not other Negroes -
Sipuel Vs. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma
A unanimous Supreme Court held that Lois Ada Sipuel could not be denied entrance to a state law school solely because of her race.
Significance: The Court ruled denial of entrance to a state law school solely on the basis of race unconstitutional. -
Mclaurin Vs. Oklahoma State Regents
The Supreme Court invalidated the University of Oklahoma's requirement that a Black student, admitted to a graduate program unavailable to him at the state's Black school, sit in separate sections of or in spaces adjacent to the classroom, library, and cafeteria.
Significance: The Supreme Court held that these restrictions were unconstitutional because it interfered with his "ability to study, to engage in discussions, and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profess -
Brown Vs. Board of Education is formally filed
On February 28, Brown v. Board of Education was filed in Federal district court, in Kansas. -
Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.
NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia's segregated schools.
Significance: Davis et al.ICounty School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., was another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education -
Brown Vs. Board of Education
Robert Carter led the NAACP legal team into trial.
Significance: In August, a three-judge panel at the U. S. District Court unanimously held in the Brown v. Board of Education case that "no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination" existed in Topeka’s schools. The U. S. District Court found that the physical facilities in White and Black schools were comparable and that the lower court’s decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin only applied to graduate education.