1959
June
Prince Edward County, Virginia closes all of its public schools rather than desegregate them.
1950
1958
September
In Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), the Supreme Court unanimously holds that Little Rock must proceed with the desegregation of its public schools despite state-inspired opposition, violence, and disorder.
1957
January
Martin Luther King and his allies found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to carry out the civil rights agenda. On February 14th, King is officially elected as leader.
August
Congress passes its first civil rights bill since 1875. It creates a Civil Rights Commission and establishes the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. Nevertheless, the bill’s provisions are so watered down that it is widely regarded as ineffectual.
1956
February
An angry mob prevents Autherine Lucy, a black student, from being admitted to the University of Alabama. Lucy is nearly lynched. President Eisenhower declines to employ federal force or power to secure her admission. She is eventually expelled from the University for allegedly bringing false contempt charges against a member of the Board of Trustees of the University.
1955
April
The Supreme Court hears its third round of arguments in Brown� this time concerning remedies.
May 31
On the last day of the Term, the Supreme Court hands down Brown II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955), ordering that desegregation occur with “all deliberate speed.”
In response to Brown II, White Citizen’s Councils are formed by businessmen and professionals to oppose desegregation. Lynchings resurge.
1954
May 3rd
In Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954), the Supreme Court strikes down state policies that discriminate against Mexican Americans in jury selection.
May 17th
The Supreme Court decides Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), declaring that racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause. The same day, it holds that racial segregation in the District of Columbia public schools violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).
1953
June
1952
March
The trial court in Davis v. Prince Edward County finds in favor of the School Board under the theory of “separate but equal.”
April
A Delaware court rules in Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart that the plaintiffs are entitled to immediate admission to white public schools.
June
The Supreme Court announces that it will hear oral arguments in Briggs and Brown during the upcoming October 1952 Term.
1951
February
On February 28, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is filed in federal district court in Kansas.
May
NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson files Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia’s segregated schools and another of the cases eventually consolidated with Brown.
1950
June
1950
June
In Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), the Supreme Court holds that the University of Texas Law School must admit a black student, Heman Sweatt. The University of Texas Law School is far superior in its offerings and resources to the separate black law school, which had been hastily established in a downtown basement. The Truman Administration’s Justice Department files a brief asking the Court to directly overrule Plessy v. Ferguson, but the Court declines, simply holding that Texas failed to provide separate but equal education. In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950), the Court invalidates 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.
February
On February 28, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka is filed in federal district court in Kansas.
May
NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson files Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia’s segregated schools and another of the cases eventually consolidated with Brown.
Briggs v. Elliott, the South Carolina case, goes to trial. Marshall and the NAACP present a vast array of social science evidence showing how segregation harms black school children, including Kenneth Clark’s controversial “Doll Study.” A three judge panel upholds segregation in the schools by a vote of 2 to 1.
June
Brown v. Board of Education goes to trial with Robert Carter leading the NAACP legal team. In August, a three judge panel unanimously holds that “no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination” exists in the Topeka public schools. The court finds that the physical facilities in white and black schools are comparable and that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin apply only to graduate education. However, the court also includes a finding of fact that echoes the testimony of the social science experts by noting that segregation has a detrimental effect on black school children. “The impact [of segregation] is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group… . Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system.”
October
The Delaware cases, Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart, go to trial.
March
The trial court in Davis v. Prince Edward County finds in favor of the School Board under the theory of “separate but equal.”
April
A Delaware court rules in Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart that the plaintiffs are entitled to immediate admission to white public schools.
June
The Supreme Court announces that it will hear oral arguments in Briggs and Brown during the upcoming October 1952 Term.
October
Days before arguments are to be heard in Briggs, and Brown, the Supreme Court announces a postponement. Three weeks later, the Court announces that it will also hear the Delaware cases, as well as Davis v. Prince Edward County and the District of Columbia case, Bolling v. Sharpe. The cases are collected together as Brown v. Board of Education.
December
First round of arguments held in Brown and its companion cases.
June
The black community of Baton Rouge, Louisiana launches a mass boycott against segregated buses, marking the beginning of the direct action phase of the Civil Rights Movement. Organized through a network of local black churches, the boycott is led by Reverend T.J. Jemison, pastor of one of the largest black churches in the city. The boycott lasts seven days and proves highly successful. It galvanizes the black community; the New York Times reports that at least 90% of the black population participates. Eventually, white city leaders compromise by agreeing to reserve the two side front seats of the bus for whites and the long rear seat for blacks. All other seating is to be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Although the victory is limited, news of the success of this direct-action grass-roots strategy reverberates throughout black church networks across the South.
The Supreme Court orders a second round of arguments in Brown, originally scheduled for October 12.
September
Chief Justice Vinson dies unexpectedly of a heart attack on the 8th. President Eisenhower nominates California Governor Earl Warren to replace Vinson as interim Chief on the 30th. The Court reschedules arguments in Brown for December. Warren is confirmed as Chief Justice by the Senate in March of 1954.
December
Second round of arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.
May 3rd
In Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954), the Supreme Court strikes down state policies that discriminate against Mexican Americans in jury selection.
May 17th
The Supreme Court decides Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (Brown I), declaring that racial segregation in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause. The same day, it holds that racial segregation in the District of Columbia public schools violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).
In the wake of the decision, the District of Columbia and some school districts in the border states begin to desegregate their schools voluntarily. State legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia adopt resolutions of “interposition and nullification” that declare the Court’s decision to be “null, void, and no effect.” Various southern legislatures pass laws that impose sanctions on anyone who implements desegregation, and enact school closing plans that authorize the suspension of public education and the disbursement of public funds to parents to send their children to private schools. The governor of Virginia declares that he will do everything within his power to maintain segregated schools. Some states enact statutes mandating school segregation, ordering state and local officials to take all measures within their authority to preserve segregation, terminating funding for racially mixed schools, and repealing compulsory attendance laws.
The Court schedules arguments on remedy in Brown for October but eventually puts them off to April of 1955.
In a series of per curiam opinions handed down between 1954 and 1962, the Supreme Court holds unconstitutional a wide variety of Jim Crow laws, citing Brown as authority. The Court strikes down segregation in golf courses and fishing lakes in Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Ass’n., 347 U.S. 971 (1954) and Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U.S. 879 (1955); in public beaches, bathhouses, and swimming pools in Mayor of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U.S. 877 (1955); in a public law school in Florida ex rel. Hawkins v. Board of Control, 350 U.S. 413 (1956); on buses in Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956); in city parks in New Orleans City Park Improvement Ass’n v. Detiege, 358 U.S. 54 (1958); and in airport restaurants and rest rooms in Turner v. City of Memphis, 369 U.S. 350 (1962).
The Department of Defense announces that all-black units no longer exist in the military.
October
Justice Jackson dies suddenly. President Eisenhower nominates John Marshall Harlan, the grandson of the lone dissenter in Plessy, to fill the vacancy. After long hearings before the Senate, Harlan is finally sworn in as an Associate Justice in March of 1955.
April
The Supreme Court hears its third round of arguments in Brown� this time concerning remedies.
May 31
On the last day of the Term, the Supreme Court hands down Brown II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955), ordering that desegregation occur with “all deliberate speed.”
In response to Brown II, White Citizen’s Councils are formed by businessmen and professionals to oppose desegregation. Lynchings resurge.
August
Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, is murdered for saying “Bye, baby” to and allegedly whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi. The case quickly attracts national attention. In September, an all-white jury finds his alleged assailants not guilty of murder.
December
On December 1, Rosa Parks refuses to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus to a white passenger. She is arrested for violating municipal laws and ordered to appear for trial four days later. She is convicted and ordered to pay a fine of $10. When she refuses to pay, she is jailed.
On the 5th, the Montgomery Bus Boycott begins, inspired by Rosa Parks and led by Martin Luther King, Jr. It continues through 1956. The boycott gives King a position of leadership within the national civil rights movement and demonstrates that nonviolent methods of protest could be effective.
February
An angry mob prevents Autherine Lucy, a black student, from being admitted to the University of Alabama. Lucy is nearly lynched. President Eisenhower declines to employ federal force or power to secure her admission. She is eventually expelled from the University for allegedly bringing false contempt charges against a member of the Board of Trustees of the University.
March
Twenty-two Senators and 82 of the 106 Southern Representatives issue the Southern Manifesto, a declaration charging that the Court’s opinion in Brown was “a clear abuse of judicial power” that substituted the Justices’ “personal political and social ideas for the established law of the land.” They pledge to “use all lawful means to bring about the reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution.” Meanwhile, The Georgia state legislature votes to adopt as its new state flag a design that includes the Confederate battle insignia.
The Supreme Court refuses to decide a challenge to miscegenation laws in Naim v. Naim, 350 U.S. 891 (1956), arguing that the record was insufficient.
November
On the13th, the Supreme Court rules that the city ordinances segregating seating on the Montgomery city buses violate the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision is implemented on December 21st, finally bringing the Montgomery Bus boycott to an end.
January
Martin Luther King and his allies found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to carry out the civil rights agenda. On February 14th, King is officially elected as leader.
August
Congress passes its first civil rights bill since 1875. It creates a Civil Rights Commission and establishes the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department. Nevertheless, the bill’s provisions are so watered down that it is widely regarded as ineffectual.
September
Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus posts members of the National Guard at the entrance of Central High School in Little Rock to prevent the court-ordered admission of black students. Three weeks after the stand off begins, the students try to enter the school and are greeted by an angry mob. On September 24th, Eisenhower finally sends 1100 army paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock, federalizes 10,000 members of the Arkansas National Guard, and orders the school to be desegregated. Governor Faubus eventually closes all four high schools in Little Rock rather than allow desegregation to continue.
September
In Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958), the Supreme Court unanimously holds that Little Rock must proceed with the desegregation of its public schools despite state-inspired opposition, violence, and disorder.
June
Prince Edward County, Virginia closes all of its public schools rather than desegregate them.
