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Henderson vs US
On May 17, 1942, Elmer Henderson, an African-American was travelling 1st class on the Southern Railway. He was refused service at the dining car as it was filled with white passengers. The steward said he'd send word when there was space yet he didn't. Despite returning to the car twice he was still refused. The US Supreme Court didn't rule on "separate but equal" but did find the railroad had failed to provide the passenger with the same level of service provided to white passengers. -
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents
George McLaurin was first denied admission to the University of Oklahoma. He sued in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma to gain admission to the school. At the time, Oklahoma law prohibited schools from instructing blacks and whites together. The court found that the university's inaction in providing separate facilities, in order to meet Oklahoma state law, allowing McLaurin to attend the institution was a violation of his Constitutional rights. -
Sweatt vs Painter
Heman Marion Sweatt was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas, (president Theophilus Painter) because the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. No law school in Texas would admit black students. During 6 months the case was argued , Texas created a law school specifically for black students to sustain segregation legally with "separate but equal facilities". Of course the school was sub-standard and failed to qualify. Proved lack of equality. -
Brown vs Board of Education ruling
Lawsuit filed against Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas. Oliver Brown's daughter Linda, had to walk six blocks to school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house. Despite her father's attempt to enroll her at Sumner Elementary she was refused because she was black. -
Brown II
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'Separate but equal' has no place." In declaring that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," it overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. Brown II, issued in 1955, decreed that the dismantling of separate school systems for blacks and whites could proceed with "all deliberate speed," Unintentionally the ambiguous phrase encouraged various strategies of resistance to the decision. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks is convicted and fined $14 in Montgomery city court. A one-day boycott of city buses results in about 90 percent of normal black passengers staying off buses. -
2nd Inauguration of President Eisenhower
Eisenhower administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue--Communists around the world were using racial discrimination in the U.S. as a point of propaganda attack. Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children. He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and signed those acts into law. -
Little Rock 9
On their first day of school, troops from the Arkansas National Guard would not let the Little Rock 9: Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed and Melba Pattillo Beals enter the school. They were followed by mobs making threats to lynch. Arkansaw governor Orval Faubus disobeyed federal law and ordered troops to deny the 9 entry to the school to gain white supremacist votes. -
Civil Rights Act
Legislation which outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. Ended racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public e.g restaurants and toilets.