Assess the view that the Supreme Court was the most important branch of federal government in assisting African Americans to achieve their civil rights in the period 1865-1992.

The three main branches of America federal government often show great divergence of opinion - something that has a huge impact on the way laws and attitudes in the US change over time - and this is blindingly obvious in terms of the Civil Rights movement and the fight for African American civil rights - for example, even at times when Congress was highly conservative, the Supreme Court was able to make rulings, based on previous legislation, that dramatically improved the rights of African Americans, and even at times when the Supreme Court and Congress were both heavily opposed to further movement on the issue, the President was able to step in and issue Executive Orders.

One of the first steps, of course, on the journey toward equal rights for African Americans was the 13th Amendment. Ultimately, unless the slaves had been freed, there could never have been equality for them with the rest of society. Followed by the 14th and 15th Amendments, which further extended the de jure rights of African Americans - indeed, the Amendments gave African Americans equal rights, in a de jure capacity. All three of these amendments were passed by Congress, and are indicative of the positive attitude towards the movement held by Congress in the early part of the period. The sheer importance of these early amendments, does, in many ways suggest that the contribution of Congress did, in fact, make it the most important branch of federal government in assisting African Americans to achieve their civil rights - indeed, much of the positive action to come from other areas of government was based upon these first few moves - especially the work of the Supreme Court.

However, despite the initially promising start made by Congress, the erosion of the freedoms granted by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments began as early as the 1870s, when cases like the Slaughterhouse case effectively undid the work of Congress, thanks to rulings by the Supreme Court. This case ruled that states were permitted to make laws affecting the rights of the citizens - a ruling that would allow southern states to make laws segregating black and white citizens. In fact, it almost went so far as to completely disregard the 14th Amendment, claiming it protected an person's individual rights, but not their civil rights - with one ruling, the Supreme Court effectively removed de jure equality for African Americans, and moved de facto equality further out of their reach. This case was also one of the first examples of federal government choosing to recognise "States' Rights" - a view that would allow many of the southern states to continue to discriminate against their African American citizens for many decades to come. The Slaughterhouse case clearly indicates the position of the Supreme Court during this part of the period - they were prepared to interpret the law to their own ends, at this point, this involved allowing the southern states to do as they pleased, in order to pacify them following the Civil War, and hence had a hugely negative impact on the achievement of Civil Rights for African Americans.

Continuing the trend of positive moves being made by Congress, and negative moves being made by the Supreme Court, Congress passed a Civil Rights act in 1875, in reaction to increasingly more formalised segregation in many southern states, making it clear that public areas should not be segregated, and that equal rights for all still applied in those areas. This act was, however, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, beginning with their ruling in the case of US v. Cruikshank in 1876, and completely revoking the act as unconstitutional in 1876. This further gives evidence that in the 19th Century, the Supreme Court was most certainly not the most important branch of federal government in terms of assisting African Americans to gain their civil rights, and Congress was playing a far more important role, despite the fact that their moves were being blocked by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court continued to have a negative effect upon the civil rights movement as the 19th century drew to a close. The case of Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision in the fight for Civil Rights, cementing as it did the principle of "separate but equal" - confirming the legality of segregation, and setting a legal precedent for what it meant to hold all men as created equal. This decision was a huge disappointment to the civil rights movement, who had hoped to prove that segregation was unconstitutional. They did receive some support, from Justice John Harlan, which indicates the gradually changing mood of the Supreme Court, but again, the attitude of the court as a whole was not favourable, and it was a hindrance, rather than a help to the movement. Whilst the ruling of the Supreme Court here was almost understandable, given the attitudes of the time, and despite the fact that the facilities for African Americans were often considerably lower standard than those for white Americans, the later ruling in the case of Cumming v. Board of Education seems to go completely against the constitution supposedly upheld by the Supreme Court, given the huge differences in funding between schools for black and white children. The Supreme Court could hardly be considered to merely be interpreting the law to their own desires here, but rather completely disregarding the Constitution completely, as in terms of schools, the idea of "separate but equal" could so obviously not be applied. Once more, it becomes clear that the Supreme Court were most certainly not a force for good in aiding African Americans to achieve their civil rights during this part of the period.

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The Presidents of the late 19th and early 20th centuries did, in contrast to the Supreme Court, have a relatively positive outlook toward the civil rights movement. In his inaugural address, Grover Cleveland stressed the need for equal rights for all, regardless of race; Theodore Roosevelt held talks with the highly influential black leader Booker T. Washington, as did William Taft. However, despite the apparently good intentions of these Presidents, they took very little action on the issue, preferring instead to appease the south by allowing state governments to continue to pass Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. Not only did they feel that to intervene in state affairs in the still-hostile south would be a vote-loser (thanks to state laws preventing African Americans from voting, they did not need to worry about appeasing blacks), but they considered events in the South to be of secondary importance. At this stage, the various Presidents had very little impact on assisting African Americans to gain their civil rights - though at least they did not (except through inaction) make things worse.

This, however, changed when Woodrow Wilson came to power. A Southerner himself, he was very much used to the idea that African Americans were second-class citizens, and held the racist views that were, for him, a cultural norm - and among his first actions on coming to power was to dismiss all African American advisors, and he refused to meet with civil rights leaders of the time - though this was, at least, the least positive standpoint taken by any president. Warren Harding succeeded his presidency, and though not as negative toward civil rights, he remained committed to the idea of letting southern states continue to govern themselves, and did not intervene. An initially more positive reaction came from Calvin Coolidge who, near the beginning of his presidency declared the rights of black citizens as sacred, but then, like the presidents of earlier decades, began to take a much more passive role, and allowed Congress to control all the legislation relating to civil rights for African Americans. This slight movement towards acceptance of the black community did not receive any further pushing from Herbert Hoover, however. His attempt to appoint a judge who was known to be racist to the Supreme Court was successfully opposed by the NAACP, but as President, his views were well known, and he was certainly no friend to the movement. These examples show that even into the 1920s, presidents (even when they personally agreed that African Americans should have equal rights) were still unwilling to bring about change, and despite the growing liberalisation of attitudes in the US regarding the labour unions and women, presidents like Hoover and Wilson, who held racist attitudes continued to be elected - and so during this time frame, the Presidents of the US were of very little help to African Americans struggling to achieve equal civil rights.

In many areas, Franklin D. Roosevelt is considered a "breath of fresh air" to the presidency - and civil rights is no exception. Though he did not initially appear to be a great supporter of the civil rights movement for African Americans, especially given his (understandable) preoccupation with the economy, which meant he had to pander to Southern Democrats in order to win votes that would allow him to bring in New Deal programmes. However, many of these programs did have the knock-on effect of bringing aid to African Americans - by 1935, 30% of black families were receiving relief payments from New Deal programs - a figure proportional to the number of whites at a similar poverty level - in this area at least, they were almost equal, a vital steeping stone on the way to gaining complete equality. However, Roosevelt's most proactive move on Civil Rights came in 1941, when, following a demand to do something by Philip Randolph, he issued an Executive Order that banned racial discrimination in federal government jobs, and set up a committee with the aim of monitoring discrimination within the federal government offices. For this last action alone, Roosevelt deserves to be remembered as an example of the President being able to help African Americans to gain their civil rights.

During the 1920s and 30s, in contrast to their earlier stance, the Supreme Court began to develop a far more positive view on equality for African Americans. A number of cases in the late '10s and early '20s indicated that change was coming, and they began to recognise the illegality of lynchings and of some cases of segregation, and between 1936 and 1941, a series of deaths led to a mass appointment of justices to the Supreme Court by the pro-equality FDR, which in turn led to a very different attitude from the Supreme Court, an attitude that first began to become evident in the 1938 case of Gaines v. Canada, which ruled that where segregation was in force, the facilities provided must be equal. Whilst this did not appear to represent a great divergence from the ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, it did at least show that the Supreme Court was willing to take a marginally more active stance with regards to civil rights for African Americans, and they were certainly moving away from the unhelpful stance of the Supreme Court in earlier decades.

As the 1940s began, the issue of civil rights and segregation within the armed forces began to become more apparent. As previously mentioned, this prompted Franklin D Roosevelt to issue an executive order to ban segregation within federal employment - and this included within the armed forces. Following Roosevelt's death, his successor, Harry Truman issued further executive orders to fully desegregate the armed forces and commissioned a committee to investigate the state of civil rights in the US, and it issued a report identifying many of the problems present in American society. Unfortunately, however, Truman was unable to persuade a Congress still filled with racist Southern Democrats to adopt any new changes that might have improved things for African Americans in terms of their Civil Rights. There was also a small number of cases taken to the Supreme Court, thanks to the NAACP, but accusations of communism in the new Cold War era were diminishing their power and resources, and so despite a generally more positive feeling towards the movement, little progress was made by the Supreme Court. In this period, it seems that the Presidency had the most impact on helping African Americans to gain civil rights, though the effect of executive orders was limited, in that passing too many would lead to accusations of the President acting as a dictator.

Despite fading into the background somewhat in the 1940s, the Supreme Court made a comeback in terms of making decisions on civil rights in the 1950s. The landmark case was, of course, Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas, and it was arguably the turning point in federal government when it came to the rights of African Americans. Dealing primarily with the issue of segregation in schools, the case ruled that it would be unconstitutional to send Linda Brown, the girl for whom the trial is named, to any school other than the one nearest to her, an all-white school. For the first time since Plessy v. Ferguson, the principle of "separate but equal" was challenged, and a new legal precedent was set, one that declared segregation as unconstitutional. Though the enforcement of this case was not strict, it did signal the start of a new era, an era in which other, more liberal still, decisions could be made. This case is the first in which the Supreme Court can be said to have played a truly significant role in helping African Americans to gain their civil rights, but was by no means the last, and only begins to show the importance of the contribution made by the Supreme Court.

Of course, one major result of the Brown case was the (eventual) forced implementation of mixed schools, which, in Little Rock, Arkansas was not as smooth a procedure as many might have hoped. The governor, Governor Faubus used troops from the National Guard to block the entrance to the school, preventing the nine black children who were to attend the school from entering - he claimed this was for their safety, as many of the students were racist. After hearing about this, the president, President Eisenhower sent in federal troops, and put 10000 members of the Arkansas National Guard under federal control, hence the same soldiers who had been keeping the children out of the school on one day were the same ones who ensured their safe entry into the school. This was the only case in which the President felt moved to use his authority to enforce the Supreme Court's decision, but in doing so, he highlighted the biggest failing of the Supreme Court- their virtual inability to self-enforce any decisions that were made.

As the 1950s ended, two Civil Rights Acts (1957 and 1960) were pushed through Congress, one of the few contributions to the furthering of civil rights for African Americans made by Congress during the decade. Both acts were somewhat weak, merely reiterating previous rulings, and setting up committees to investigate civil rights abuses. The weakness of these acts shows the continued influence of racist southern Democrats in Congress - the acts had been somewhat stronger, but would not pass without the support of the southern Democrats, and so the acts were watered down to the point where they became almost meaningless. At this stage, Congress could still not be considered to have any real impact on civil rights for African Americans, primarily because of the aforementioned Congressmen.

On a more positive note, however, the Supreme Court once again came to the forefront of federal government action to aid African Americans to gain their civil rights. The Browder v. Gayle case, which came about because of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, as led by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. In this hugely important decision, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was illegal, and so dealt another blow to the last remnants of the "separate but equal" philosophy first laid down in Plessy v. Ferguson. This case was followed by the case of Boynton v. Virginia, also dealing with segregation on public transport, and again shows the relative ease with which the Supreme Court could rule against discrimination that affected multiple states at once, dealing as it did with inter-state travel. These rulings helped add steam to the civil rights movement and demonstrate the importance to the cause of the Supreme Court at this time, a Supreme Court that had come a long way from the days in which it would attempt to make obsolete any pro-equality law or act.

These rulings by the Supreme Court also attracted the attention of the president, John F Kennedy, who was still afraid of losing the support of southern whites, but less so than earlier presidents, as he saw the need to keep order, and to enforce those decisions being made by the Supreme Court. Federal agents and soldiers were often made available by Kennedy to ensure that African Americans were able to exercise their new freedoms, and in the run up to his assassination in 1963, Kennedy had begun to draft a Civil Rights Act, which was passed by Johnson in 1964, and which Lyndon B. Johnson followed up with the Voting Rights Bill in 1965. Both of these pieces of legislation required the joint cooperation of President and Congress, and marked a great success for Johnson, who had done the impossible, and created a pro-Civil Rights coalition of Republicans and Democrats, a feat unachieved by any President previously. This period in the 1960s was truly a high for civil rights activists, and the leaps forward were unmatched by any President previously (with the possible exception of Lincoln).

After this high, there had to be a low. The end of the 60s brought with it war in Vietnam, which pushed the issue of civil rights out of the minds of many, and the sudden rush of legislation ended twice as quickly as it had begun. A Fair Housing Act was passed in 1968 by Congress, and this did, in many ways, help end even de facto segregation, by allowing many more African Americans a greater choice of where to live, though many chose to remain in the areas they were born in, the areas where they had friends and family. However, Vietnam had brought with it political ruin for Johnson, and so he chose not to stand for a second time, so despite his incredible personal importance in securing rights for African Americans, his influence was somewhat shortlived.

Johnson's replacement came in the form of Nixon, a considerably less liberal man, who took firm action against the Black Panthers, a new civil rights group who utilised violence as a way of getting their message across. Nixon very much felt that it was a time to pause after the legislature of the previous years, and hence very little happened through him or Congress in terms of civil rights for several years. Despite this apparently negative stance, Nixon did introduce affirmative action in employment, a scheme very much to the tastes of the American public, who had a strong belief in working one's way up the ladder, and in bettering oneself through hard work. Affirmative action was a clear way of showing that African Americans were equal to whites in the workplace, that they could work in the same jobs just as well as one another, and it was intended to provide African American families with the means to live in the same way as their fellow whites. It was declared constitutional too, by the Supreme Court in 1971, and their support of the plan begins to show quite how far they had come from ruling almost entirely against the laws as set out by Congress and the president. Setting this (affirmative action) up was an incredibly important decision, though not quite so landmark as earlier decisions, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but continues to show the importance of Presidential decisions.

A further idea debuted under Nixon was that of bussing. Though considered by some to have been a complete failure, there is no doubt that the motive of integrating schools such that children learned from an early age that there was little difference between blacks and whites was a positive one, and one that showed the importance of Presidential decisions in making sure equality was long term, not merely a short-term phase. Like affirmative action, the Supreme Court upheld bussing as constitutional, though later rulings considered that it was impractical where segregation was unintentional - ie, when a school in a predominantly white neighbourhood had a predominantly white pupil body. Although the scheme ultimately declined, its importance is not entirely negligible, and shows, once more, that the President still had a role to play.

Following Nixon, very little happened under the leadership of Ford and Carter. Whilst neither of them did anything to reverse the moves made forward, neither did anything of any particular note to move civil rights forward either, and so during the late 70s and the beginning of the 80s, the only real changes to civil rights legislation came from the Supreme Court, who began to withdraw from affirmative action - and in some ways, this was an incredibly important decision, as it reduced the likelihood of resentment about African American workers being hired preferentially - had feelings of resentment come to light, this might have stirred deeper racist feeling, and a return to the hostility of the early 20th century.

Finally, through the 80s and 90s, Reagan and Bush Sr. had a dramatic effect on the civil rights movement. Reagan represented the first president in many years with an agenda that included slowing down, and even stopping the moves towards a fully equal society - with his economic cuts leaving many blacks at the very bottom of the poverty ladder. Reagan appointed the fewest African Americans to office since Eisenhower, a move that was very much in line with his view that appointments should be made on merit, not to fill specific quotas, and so his appointment of a conservative judge to the Supreme Court was unsurprising, but it also meant that the Supreme Court was held back in the judgements it could make. Under Reagan, however, Congress remained liberal, and was able to push him to accept strengthening of acts such as the Voting Rights Act when renewing them, a move that shows the importance of Congress not only to the US political system, but also to the civil rights movement at this stage. Right at the end of the period, George Bush Sr. was hardly the greatest advocate of civil rights, and further conservatised the Supreme Court with his appointment of Clarence Thomas, a conservative, black, Republican lawyer. Of greatest importance in this period was most certainly Congress, as despite conservative presidents and an increasingly conservative Supreme Court, they were able to make changes that greatly improved and extended the rights of many blacks.

As is obvious, there was much change over the period in terms of which branch of US federal government was the most important in helping African Americans gain civil rights. Of course, under presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, executive orders were passed which did huge amounts to end segregation in the workplace, not to mention the fact that many of the acts that were passed in the period were passed with the full support, and campaigning of the President in office, however, too many of the presidents were constrained by the fear of losing votes to make any real difference to any great portion of the African American population. Congress, too, did a vast amount, pushing at many times for the extension of civil rights, despite the hostility of the Presidents, and actually passing many of the bills that, ultimately, confirmed the rights of black Americans - and yet too often, Congress was too heavily dominated by white Southern Democrats to really be considered as the most important branch of federal government. Really, the only branch who can claim to be the most important in terms of civil rights is the Supreme Court. Despite an initially negative viewpoint at the beginning of the period, the Supreme Court also ruled some of the most landmark decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, cases that set an entirely new precedent, and allowed the moving forward of the civil rights movement. It did of course have one huge advantage - the appointment of judges who serve for life by different presidents means that the Supreme Court is not so easily swayed by public opinion, and does not make decisions based upon what will win them votes - and so racist white southerners had very little effect on the Supreme Court- which is more than can be said for the other two branches of the federal government.

Peer Reviews

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lordharvey

18th of Apr 2012

Quality of writing

The essay is sometimes hard to read because the student does not use enough punctuation - the entire introduction, for example, is actually only one sentence. This makes it harder for the examiner to understand because it is not broken up into ordinary sized chunks of information. Also, the essay is not always written in an appropriate style for A Levels - phrases like "this is blindingly obvious" sound exaggerated, and it would be more appropriate to say something like "this was never more obvious". The essay makes good use of vocabulary such as "however", which is good because words like that reiterate the student's knowledge of other interpretations and proves that they can consider other opinions on historical events.

Level of analysis

The student uses a good range of evidence, including statistics such as "by 1935, 30% of black families were receiving relief". This is good because it shows that the student understands that it was a significant number of people receiving relief, not a tiny, irrelevant percentage. The student is also very good at talking about why things happened and what the effects were, rather than simply telling the story of what happened, which is bad as it takes little thought to remember and write down details. The student instead gives details then says things like "many of these programs did have the knock-on effect of bringing aid to African Americans" - this shows they have thought deeply about what happened to people when the programs were introduced, rather than spending a paragraph talking about the irrelevant details of the programs such as which senator introduced them or how long they took to pass. The conclusion is not explicitly labelled as the conclusion - the student doesn't say "In conclusion..." - which would have been good because it is unclear whether or not this is actually the conclusion. It is vital to have a conclusion - and to leave the examiner in no doubt that it is there - because it shows you can decide which interpretation you have considered is the most likely to be correct. This student does this by saying "the only branch who can claim to be the most important in terms of civil rights is the Supreme Court", but they could improve by labelling the last paragraph as the conclusion.

Response to question

The student answers the question quite well by providing alternative interpretations on the roles of the branches of the federal government, which is good as it shows they have thought about other possible causes of African American civil rights and aren't just focusing on one event. However, it is hard to see where consideration of one interpretation stops and another begins: it would be better to bring all the arguments for the Supreme Court into one section, all the arguments for Congress into the next section, and all the arguments for the presidency into the next section. This would show that the student had a strong understanding of how the branches of the federal government had different roles to play in the achievement of civil rights. If you did this, you should still talk about other branches of the federal government even if it wasn't in the right section, because that would show the ability to compare an action of one branch to an action of another branch.

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