By the mid 1950s Desegregation was gradually starting to be enforced in the southern states. One of the most prominent and significant cases was that of Linda Brown, a black schoolgirl who had to walk two miles every morning and afternoon to attend a ‘black-only’ school. This was common in the south but the injustice lay in the fact that she lived just around the corner from a school, but the school was an ‘all-white’ school and would not permit her to attend. The NAACP stated that the segregation of schools caused black Americans to feel inferior therefore re-moving a sense of equality between them and their counterparts, which is a direct breach of the 14th amendment promising equal rights. On 17th March 1954 the court agreed and thereafter the principles set in this particular case proved useful in later cases involving segregation.
American factories began expanding production when war broke out in Europe creating many new jobs. At first Blacks were excluded from most of these jobs. The United States went on to fight World War II with a segregated military. Blacks and Whites kept in separate units. Blacks were normally used in support roles. Segregationists advanced the theory that Blacks were not capable soldiers. Many Black soldiers wondered about fighting racist NAZI Germany when they faced racism at home. (Many of the early NAZI actions against the Jews in Germany were based in on American Segregation laws.) And when they finally did return home there reception was far from welcoming, black Americans were still being treated with the same level of disrespect they faced before the war.
The Civil Rights movement was strongly supported by Blacks in the North. This was not the case in the South. Poles in 1954 revealed that only slight more than half (53 percent) of Black Southerners supported school desegregation. Here I am not sure about the validity of these polls. If they were collected by White polltakers, many Blacks might not have answered frankly. The Klan terror was so frightening; many Blacks probably feared any kind of change and especially expressing their opinions frankly. This also meant that many community leaders were hesitant to get involved. In Montgomery for example, Dr. King was asked to address the issue of the public transportation when more establish Black leaders refused to get involved. The movement was to be lead by a new generation of youthful leaders and the most faithful supporters were
The Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka made school segregation illegal. But the Court had no powers of enforcement. President Eisenhower was not pleased with the decision. (He had opposed desegregation of the Army.) Thus there was no Federal action promoting compliance. Schools in states like Kansas quietly complied. States in the South did not. The NACCP brought legal action, which slowly worked their way through the legal system.
One of the first cities located in the south to convert to a more segregated society through sheer coincidence was Little Rock, Arkansas. Already quiet and advanced city in terms of segregation policies and progression in achieving desegregation. Little Rock was also one of the first to pass a law against segregation at its local high school. It also had great success in converting parks, library, zoo, buses and nearly all of its universities into a desegregated environment, and they planned to desegregate all schools in the space of a few years. The fact that a law banning segregation in Little Rocks high was in place did not mean there was no opposition to it; in fact most white people in Little Rock were against the prospect of a desegregated school. The nine African-Americans attempting to attend the high school encountered many difficulties such as racial abuse and attack. On Monday 23rd of September, the first day the school was to be desegregated, a mob of around 1000 people gathered around the school attempting to prevent the black students from entering. The events that took place in Little Rock clearly show how deeply entrenched racism was in America-especially the south-and why desegregation became such an increasing problem in the 1950s.
