WHAT’S THE STORY?

THOUGH you might not notice it from the lack of commemoration and celebration stateside, today is the 50th anniversary of the United States Supreme Court ruling that school racial segregation should end immediately.

It was one of the most momentous achievements of the Civil Rights Movement that had sprung from the issue of educational rights some 15 years before, yet in the current climate in the USA, there’s precious little enthusiasm for celebrating a landmark judgement that in effect told the Southern states to get their schools desegregated “pronto”, as they might say across the Pond.

The case of Alexander v Holmes County was a sensation in its day, and caused President Richard Nixon huge embarrassment, not least because the unexpected Supreme Court ruling went dead against his pro-South policies.

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

MANY people date the start of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA to the case of Brown v Board of Education at the US Supreme Court in 1954.

After 1896, schools in the USA could remain racially segregated as long as equal facilities were afforded to white and black schools – the “separate but equal” doctrine.

In reality, of course, white institutions were favoured by far, until in 1951, Oliver Brown tried to enrol his nine-year-old daughter Linda in Sumner Elementary School, an all-white school in Topeka in Kansas – Linda Brown died in March last year, it should be noted.

The school refused so her father sued the Topeka Board of Education. The case went through the lower courts until in 1954, the Supreme Court found in the Browns’ favour, thus ending school segregation. The judgement was that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place”, as segregated schools are “inherently unequal”.

The Supreme Court later ruled that desegregation should take place “with all deliberate speed”.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT RULING?

IN many Southern states, next to nothing happened. The interpretation of the word “deliberate” was the key to many boards of education taking their time about integration.

This led to cases such as that of the Little Rock Nine, who were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957.

On their first day of classes at Central High, Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called in the National Guard to block the nine students’ entry into the high school. The parents of white children demonstrated against the Nine. Police replaced the National Guard to get the Nine in but could do little to stop the ensuing riots. Later that month, President Dwight D Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.

Many cases of school segregation continued as Southern states slowed the pace of integration to less than glacial. In those places where integration took place, there were often disturbances, and the Civil Rights Movement grew steadily as it protested against segregation and other Jim Crow laws.

SO WHAT HAPPENED IN 1969?

AGAIN it began as a case in the lower courts, this time in Mississippi. Beatrice Alexander sued the Holmes County School District for failing to integrate quickly enough, based on the verifiable fact that there were so few black children, including hers, in all-white schools.

AS in 1954, the case went to the Supreme Court, only much more quickly, because the Federal Department of Health Education and Welfare had asked for a delay in its plans for integration. This move was interpreted as part of Nixon’s so-called “Southern Strategy”.

The National:

Alexander v Holmes County Board of Education was heard by the Supreme Court justices in September and October, 1969. The Court was split at first, but eventually came together to order the immediate end of desegregation.

Their ruling stated: “The obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools.”

The reaction on October 29, 1969, was one of shock on all sides – the Civil Rights Movement because it had won, consternation on the part of Southern white leaders, and embarrassment for Nixon who had said those who wanted immediate integration were an “extreme group” – clearly that included the Supreme Court justices.

RACIAL SEGREGATION IN SCHOOLS IS A BAD THING, SURELY

NO doubt, but some might argue that religious segregation is also a bad thing. In which case you come up against Article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”

The so-called segregation academies which sprang up after the 1954 Supreme Court ruling often cited the UN article when arguing for their right to have schools that pursued a particular ethos or religion.

They were private schools and used no tax money, but in 1976 they were also declared unconstitutional because they were discriminatory. Many have since closed.

Many other private schools still exist in the USA as they have done for more than 150 years, usually attached to one or other sect of Christianity. The UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child would seem to be set against private schools, but one country in the UN has yet to ratify it – the USA.

Given all we’ve seen from the current President of the United States, don’t expect that to happen while he’s occupying the Oval Office.