The Brown Decision
The Brown Decision
The 1954 U . S . Supreme Court decision Brown v . Board of Education of Topeka , Kansas ushered in a new era in the struggle for civil rights . This landmark decision outlawed racial segregation in public schools . Whites around the country condemned the decision . In the South such white supremacist groups as the Ku Klux
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1957 : NAACP registers nine black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School : Ernest Green , Elizabeth Eckford , Jefferson Thomas , Terrence Roberts , Carlotta Walls , Minnijean Brown , Gloria ' Ray , Thelma Mothershed and Melba Pattillo who affectionately became known as the Little Rock Nine .
Klan and the Citizens ' Council organized to resist desegregation , mostly resorting to violence . A primary target of supremacist groups was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ). Over the course of decades the NAACP had filed a succession of court cases , including Brown , and had assumed the lead in the national struggle against segregated education . The oldest established national civil rights organization , the NAACP also played an important role at the local level ; blacks across the South organized branches to combat discrimination in their communities .
One of the first attempts to comply with the Brown decision came in Arkansas ' s capital city , Little Rock , in 1957 . It was prompted in part by the work of the Arkansas NAACP and its president , Daisy Bates . When the local school board admitted nine black students to the city ' s previously all-white Central High School , white protests escalated into violence ; as a result President Dwight D . Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to protect the black students . A later high-profile case involved Alabama governor George Wallace . In 1963 he attempted to block black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama .
Front Cover Feature We Shall Over Come Civil Rights 1964 - 2014 Thurgood Marshall , Little Rock 9 Dr . Martin Luther King , Jr Jacksonville , Florida August 2014
Thurgood Marshall was instrumental in ending legal segregation and became the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court . As counsel to the NAACP , he utilized the judiciary to champion equality for African Americans . In 1954 , he won the Brown v . Board of Education case , in which the Supreme Court ended racial segregation in public schools . Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967 , and served for 24 years .