This was one of the main objectives for the blacks. If they could desegregate schools then they would gain social acceptance and their children would grow up together and gradually learn to accept each other giving blacks social and economic advancement. It was an easy way to challenge the whites and show that the “separate but equal” rule was not completely fair. For example, a survey was done in Claredon Country, South Caroline, which revealed that $13.08 was spent on blacks education even though 75% of student were black compared to the whites who got $37.87 spent on education. There was also little opportunity for blacks to go to universities’.
The first people to try and challenge the education board were the parents of a young girl called Linda Brown. They believed that the fact their daughter had to travel five miles to school everyday because she was not allowed to attended the white school across the block made the “separate but equal” rule unequal and finally decided to sue. On May the 17th 1954, the Supreme Court declared, "segregated schools are not equal and cannot be made equal, and hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws", due to Thurgood Marshall, director of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Brown V’s board of education helped change America forever. The blacks didn’t get desegregation that easily though and it became a major problem for them. There was lots of resistance in the south and one of the main reasons for this were the politicians as they started to act dictatorially. Whites stared to realise that if they could start become violent at schools then they had a reason to say no to them desegregating schools. Whites were afraid that blacks would advance socially and economically challenging white supremacy and that integration would lead to a “mongrel race” of people. If there was going to be violence between the whites and blacks wasn’t it better to keep them apart? Whites were afraid that blacks would gain supremacy in the south if they were to become equal. There were a lot more blacks compared to whites or at leased a 60/40 split as in Mississippi, due to slavery in the early 1800’s.
One of the main politicians to cause trouble between the blacks and the whites was Orval Faubus who found that if he supported the whites in their violence then he would become more popular and get more votes. He used the National Guard to stop black children from attending the Little Rock Central High School in September 1957. He stood up to Eisenhower this way because he knew it would impress people voting for him and he also didn’t like the thought of blacks and whites become equal. President Eisenhower was reluctant to get involved although but he ended up sending in federal troops to Little Rock to brake up the big gangs of whites that had come to cause trouble for the blacks on there first day at school. This was the only time that he had intervened and the whites were absolutely furious that they had been forced to desegregate their school. To keep the violence from happening again all black children had to have troops following them around the school. Obval Faubus decided to retaliate and shut down a lot of the schools so neither black nor whites could go to school. Films of the events at Little Rock was broadcast all over the world which shamed the whole of white America but was good news for the Blacks who could show how they didn’t go as low as the whites, kept out of any violence and didn’t fight back no matter how tough it was for them.
In conclusion, I believe that on one hand the blacks didn’t make much progress because even by early 1960’s only 10% of blacks went to desegregated schools and Universities were still preventing Blacks attending but on the other hand they let the world know how badly treated they were, had shamed America and damaged their image but it was still not enough to “open the gates of opportunity”. Segregation in Education aroused such emotions as blacks were threatening white supremacy. It was hard for whites to get used to the idea of them all being equal after so long but the blacks made some progress due to their determination not to fight back and their will to keep trying. The main reason for white hostility to integration though was the issue of States Rights vs. Federal Power.
