Reaction to the Brown Supreme Court Decision

On May 17th, 1954, the United States Supreme court unanimously struck down segregation in schools as an "unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause".  The official reaction to this verdict was mixed.  State officials in Oklahoma and Kansas anticipated a quick and smooth desegregation process.  In states like Texas and Georgia, governments vowed to do everything they could to keep the "white children in white schools, and the colored children in colored schools," as Georgia Governor Herman Talmadge said.  

In a positive response to the Brown ruling, five hundred school districts had desegregated their classes within the year.   Baltimore, St. Louis, and Washington D.C., were some of the places where for the first time in history, black and white students sat next to each other in the same classroom.  Unfortunately, many places resisted the ruling on desegregation; in many places the Klu Klux Klan reappeared and White Citizens Councils boycotted businesses that supported desegregation.  This resistance brought about a second ruling on the Brown case, called Brown II.  This new ruling called for desegregation to be "implemented with deliberate speed".  Eisenhower initially refused to comply, but later events in Arkansas made him reconsinder.

Arkansas was the first southern state to admit African Americans to state universities without being required to do so.  After the Brown decision, the Arkansas school board planned for a rapid desegregation process. Governor Orval Fuagus, however, favored segregation, and in September of 1957 he ordered the national guard to reject nine African American students from Central High School.  A federal judge then ordered Faubus to let the students into the school.   These nine African American Students became know as the "Little Rock Nine".  The Little Rock Nine faced unparalleled abuse from whites in and out of school.  Elizabeth Eckford happened to encounter an especially abusive crowd as she was not escorted by the NAACP on the first day they attended Central High School.  Eisenhower was forced to send troops to the scene in order to protect the nine African American teenagers.  The whole nation witnessed this event on television, giving much publicity to desegregation.  On September 9th, 1957, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights law since 1957.

By Michael