Video

A Case for Equality Video

Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park

Transcript

Child: Hey, wait for me!

Mrs. Zelma Henderson, Plaintiff: As a child, I went through an integrated school all through high school. I had good friends, we got along, there was no problem. But when I came to Topeka, my children had to go to a separate school for black students clear across town no matter how far—and I resented that. I knew that’s where they learned to play and understand and meet the other races – all races. They got to know one another before they’re taught otherwise. And that’s why I was happy to be a plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education.

Title: A Case for Equality Reading, Writing, and Resistance

Male African American teenager (Male): If we had lived during those times we might have been forced to go to different schools.

Female Caucasian teenager (Female): It would have been against the law for us to do a lot of things together. Schools weren’t the only places where the color of your skin would either let you in… or keep you out.

Male: America used to be a very different place. Imagine not being able to sit with everyone else when you saw a movie, went to the library, or got in a bus. It was called segregation, which means separation but it wasn’t just a separation. For almost 100 years, the lives of many black people were restricted by laws and by those who enforced them.

Mrs. Henderson: When I came to Topeka in about 1940 most jobs for women were maid work and… I don’t care how much education you had you know, it was maid work. They just did not have any openings for people of color. I was used to having equal rights and then all of a sudden I have half-rights, you know, or no rights at all.

Male: The United States, the land of the free. What happened?

Female: We all know that slavery existed in the United States for a long time. It began long before there was even a country called the United States. For hundreds of years, Africans were taken from their homes and villages. They were enslaved and transported across the Atlantic. They weren’t recognized as citizens by the Constitution and in some places, it was even illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write. Educational opportunities were also denied to many blacks who were free. After the Civil War, our country changed the Constitution. New amendments made slavery illegal. They granted full citizenship to people who had been enslaved and they guaranteed equal rights for all Americans. But many white people continued to deny African Americans their equal rights. Several states ignored the changes to the Constitution and passed new laws of their own that kept black citizens separated and excluded. Fighting segregation meant breaking the states’ laws. A man named Homer Plessy was arrested for sitting in the “white” section of a segregated train. He believed that if all people were truly equal in the eyes of the Constitution then he should be able to sit wherever he wanted. This important case called Plessy v. Ferguson went all the way to the Supreme Court. It ruled that laws separating blacks from whites were legal as long as both groups had a place of their own that was equal. But what did “equal” really mean and what about the new laws that restricted African Americans? The Supreme Court left this question up to the states to decide. Many states would use the idea of “separate but equal” to create an entire network of laws that allowed black men and women to be treated as second-class citizens. It took perseverance and courage to resist oppression. One group, called the N.A.A.C.P. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People made it their mission to end segregation in this country.

Mrs. Henderson: N.A.A.C.P. was peaceful, and I liked that and… and that’s why I think I liked the organization. They were sort of the guard-persons, so to speak of our race and other people of color.

Male: Across the country the N.A.A.C.P. helped blacks and whites challenge segregation through the courts.

Female: Since the constitutional amendments stated clearly that all citizens were guaranteed equal treatment under the law the N.A.A.C.P. needed to prove in court that not only did the states’ laws separate blacks and whites – they also treated them in a way that was unequal.

Male: The N.A.A.C.P. focused its attention on segregated schools.

KANSAS Male: In Topeka, Kansas, most African American students had to travel farther than whites to attend elementary school often passing by “white-only” schools closer to their homes. Every day, in the morning and again in the afternoon they were made to feel like outsiders in their own town. The N.A.A.C.P. helped African American families challenge the Topeka School Board. In the Federal District Court, the judges agreed that separating black children in the public schools could create a feeling of inferiority – but they were not willing to overturn the state’s policy of segregation. The case was appealed. (Oliver L. Brown, et al. , v. The Board of Education of Topeka)

SOUTH CAROLINA Female: In South Carolina, black kids were not provided with transportation to school. White kids were. African American parents demanded that the state provide school buses for their children just as it did for white children. When requests for bused were denied the African American parents took the school board to court. (Briggs v. Elliott)

DELAWARE Male: Buses were also denied to black elementary school students in Delaware while older students had to ride long distances to attend high school. Their angry parents sued the school board. (Belton v. Gebhart, Bulah v. Gebhart)

VIRGINIA Female: In Virginia, a black high school didn’t have a gym, cafeteria, or infirmary. A student led 450 of her classmates on a strike to protest these obviously unequal conditions but the school board refused to listen so their parents took the school board to court. (Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County)

WASHINGTON, D.C. Male: In Washington, D.C., 11 black students were unable to register at a brand-new junior high school even though several classrooms were empty. As in all the previous cases the N.A.A.C.P. helped the parents sue the school board. (Bolling v. Sharpe)

Female: These five cases went all the way to the Supreme Court where they were combined. Named after one of the parents from Kansas this became known as Oliver L. Brown et al., v. the Board of Education of Topeka. It was now up to the Supreme Court to decide if segregation in public schools was constitutional. Attorney Thurgood Marshall and a team of lawyers handled the case for the N.A.A.C.P. They argued that segregated schools prevented African American children from having access to an equal education.

Male: On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court decided that forcing children to attend separate schools was harmful and denied them their equal rights.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren : We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place.

Male: They declared that separate but equal schools could never be equal.

Female: Segregation in schools was therefore unconstitutional and from that moment on, illegal.

Male: The following year, the Supreme Court ordered the states to put together plans to desegregate their schools. However, some of the states would not obey the court’s decision. They defied the federal government refusing to put an end to segregation.

Central High School, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS Governor Orval Faubus: It will not be possible to protect the lives and property of the citizens if forcible integration is carried out tomorrow in the schools of this community.

Female Caucasian bystander: The minute they walk in, we walk out.

Elizabeth Eckford: The crowd moved in close and they began to follow me, calling me names. Then somebody starting yelling: “Lynch her! Lynch her! Drag her over to this tree.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.

Female: Ending segregation in schools was, and would continue to be a difficult and sometimes dangerous experience. But people across the country realized that if they could challenge segregation in schools and win then they could challenge segregation everywhere.

Mrs. Henderson: To me, we made a large stride in just this case, let alone the others – and we led the way for all the other civil rights suits and I’m just glad to have been a part of it.

Students: I pledge allegiance …

Mrs. Henderson: We’ve come a long way but there is a lot more that needs to be done, I’m sure.

Students: …to the republic for which it stands…

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, then the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong the Constitution of the United States is wrong.

Description

Accompanying video for Brown curriculum with closed captioning.

Duration

12 minutes, 50 seconds

Credit

Brown v. Board of Education NHS and Brown Foundation

Copyright and Usage Info