lenge segregation in higher education, creating the legal precedents that would later be used to fight the struggle for desegregation in public primary and secondary schools (Blaustein 42).In 1950, the Reverend Oliver Brown of Topeka, Kansas wanted to enroll his daughter in the school nearest his home. The choices before him were the all-white four blocks away or the black school tow miles away. Backed by the NAACP, he filed a suit against the Topeka School Board. In the Supreme Court ruling of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, on May 17, 1954, the unanimous decision declared:To separate…[children] from others of similar age and qualification solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their heart and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone... Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy vs. Ferguson, this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy vs. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate La Point 4educational facilities are inherently unequal. (Kluger 544-551)In order to maintain segregated schools in practice, southern officials, most visibly, adopted numerous tactics to avoid implementing school integration plans. Nearly every governor in the region went on the public record as being vehemently against desegregation in all forms, but particularly in the public schools. It was seen as “race mixing” and a communist plot. Many cities took different approaches to desegregating their school districts. In the late 1940s, Mansfield, Texas’ black residents lived under a tightly structured caste system. The races were segregated in the churches, school system, and all social activities within the town. The racial code that exis...
