The Struggle for Equal Education: A Legal Challenge

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  • The Struggle for Equal Education: A Legal Challenge
    • Brown V Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
      • National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) brought a court case against the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas
      • case was about African-American girl, Linda Brown, who had to travel several km & cross a dangerous rail track to get to school, rather than go to whites-only school enarby
      • civil rights campaigners chose it as a 'test case' to see if Supreme Court would allow to continue to segregate schools
        • they knew that if the won this case, then the principle of 'separate but equal' would fall and fail
      • May 1954: Chief Justice Earl Warren announced in favour of Brown & NAACP
      • Warren ordered Southern states to set up integrated schools 'with all deliberate speed'
    • Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957
      • integration was met with bitter resistance in some states
      • Arkansas: 3 yrs after Justice Warren's decree, it failed to integrate schools
      • 1957: Supreme Court ordered Governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, to let 9 African-American students attend a white high school in Little Rock
      • Faubus ordered his states troops to prevent the African-American students from attending school
        • he claimed that this was because he couldn't guarantee their safety
      • Faubus only backed down when President Eisenhower sent federal troops to protect the students & make sure that they could join the school- the troops stayed for 6 weeks

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