Brown V. Board and the Transformation of American Culture

Brown V. Board and the Transformation of American Culture

Author: Ben Keppel

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2016-01-11

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0807161330

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legally sanctioned segregation in American public schools, brought issues of racial equality to the forefront of the nation’s attention. Beyond its repercussions for the educational system, the decision also heralded broad changes to concepts of justice and national identity. “Brown v. Board” and the Transformation of American Culture examines the prominent cultural figures who taught the country how to embrace new values and ideas of citizenship in the aftermath of this groundbreaking decision. Through the lens of three cultural “first responders,” Ben Keppel tracks the creation of an American culture in which race, class, and ethnicity could cease to imply an inferior form of citizenship. Psychiatrist and social critic Robert Coles, in his Pulitzer Prize–winning studies of children and schools in desegregating regions of the country, helped citizens understand the value of the project of racial equality in the lives of regular families, both white and black. Comedian Bill Cosby leveraged his success with gentle, family-centric humor to create televised spaces that challenged the idea of whiteness as the cultural default. Public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney designed programs like Sesame Street that extended educational opportunities to impoverished children, while offering a new vision of urban life in which diverse populations coexisted in an atmosphere of harmony and mutual support. Together, the work of these pioneering figures provided new codes of conduct and guided America through the growing pains of becoming a truly pluralistic nation. In this cultural history of the impact of Brown v. Board, Keppel paints a vivid picture of a society at once eager for and resistant to the changes ushered in by this pivotal decision.


A Step Toward Brown V. Board of Education

A Step Toward Brown V. Board of Education

Author: Cheryl Elizabeth Brown Wattley

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2014-10-22

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0806147903

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Cheryl Elizabeth Brown Wattley gives us a richly textured picture of the black-and-white world from which Ada Lois Sipuel and her family emerged. Against this Oklahoma background Wattley shows Sipuel (who married Warren Fisher a year before she filed her suit) struggling against a segregated educational system. Her legal battle is situated within the history of civil rights litigation and race-related jurisprudence in the state of Oklahoma and in the nation.


Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education

Author: James T. Patterson

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2001-03-01

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0199880840

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to end segregation in public schools. Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" Here, in a concise, moving narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas. Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph--but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court--or President Eisenhower--have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?


Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education (Scholastic Focus)

Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education (Scholastic Focus)

Author: Lawrence Goldstone

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Published: 2021-01-05

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 1338592858

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone offers an affecting portrait of the road to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which significantly shaped the United States and effectively ended segregation. Since 1896, in the landmark outcome of Plessy v. Ferguson, the doctrine of "separate but equal" had been considered acceptable under the United States Constitution. African American and white populations were thus segregated, attending different schools, living in different neighborhoods, and even drinking from different water fountains. However, as African Americans found themselves lacking opportunity and living under the constant menace of mob violence, it was becoming increasingly apparent that segregation was not only unjust, but dangerous.Fighting to turn the tide against racial oppression, revolutionaries rose up all over America, from Booker T. Washington to W. E. B. Du Bois. They formed coalitions of some of the greatest legal minds and activists, who carefully strategized how to combat the racist judicial system. These efforts would be rewarded in the groundbreaking cases of 1952-1954 known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the US Supreme Court would decide, once and for all, the legality of segregation -- and on which side of history the United States would stand.In this thrilling examination of the path to Brown v. Board of Education, Constitutional law scholar Lawrence Goldstone highlights the key trials and players in the fight for integration. Written with a deft hand, this story of social justice will remind readers, young and old, of the momentousness of the segregation hearings.


Brown V. Board of Education

Brown V. Board of Education

Author: Waldo E. Martin

Publisher: Bedford Books

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781319087906

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A general introduction analyzes the case's legal precedents and situates the case in the historical context of Jim Crow discrimination and the burgeoning development of the NAACP. Photographs, a collection of political cartoons, a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index are also included.


From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court

From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court

Author: Peter F. Lau

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2004-12-07

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780822334491

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Perhaps more than any other Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education and American Democracy Series title: Constitutional Conflicts Ser.


With All Deliberate Speed

With All Deliberate Speed

Author: Brian J. Daugherity

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Published: 2011-05

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9781610754675

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This is the first effort to provide a broad assessment of how well the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared an end to segregated schools in the United States was implemented. Written by a distinguished group of historians, the twelve essays in this collection examine how African Americans and their supporters in twelve states—Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Delaware, Missouri, Indiana, Nevada, and Wisconsin—dealt with the Court’s mandate to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” The process followed many diverse paths. Some of the common themes in these efforts were the importance of black activism, especially the crucial role played by the NAACP; entrenched white opposition to school integration, which wasn’t just a southern state issue, as is shown in Delaware, Wisconsin, and Indiana; and the role of the federal government, a sometimes inconstant and sometimes reluctant source of support for implementing Brown.


Silent Covenants

Silent Covenants

Author: Derrick Bell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2004-04-19

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0198038550

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education was handed down in 1954, many civil rights advocates believed that the decision, which declared public school segregation unconstitutional, would become the Holy Grail of racial justice. Fifty years later, despite its legal irrelevance and the racially separate and educationally ineffective state of public schooling for most black children, Brown is still viewed by many as the perfect precedent. Here, Derrick Bell shatters the shining image of this celebrated ruling. He notes that, despite the onerous burdens of segregation, many black schools functioned well and racial bigotry had not rendered blacks a damaged race. He maintains that, given what we now know about the pervasive nature of racism, the Court should have determined instead to rigorously enforce the "equal" component of the "separate but equal" standard. Racial policy, Bell maintains, is made through silent covenants--unspoken convergences of interest and involuntary sacrifices of rights--that ensure that policies conform to priorities set by policy-makers. Blacks and whites are the fortuitous winners or losers in these unspoken agreements. The experience with Brown, Bell urges, should teach us that meaningful progress in the quest for racial justice requires more than the assertion of harms. Strategies must recognize and utilize the interest-convergence factors that strongly influence racial policy decisions. In Silent Covenants, Bell condenses more than four decades of thought and action into a powerful and eye-opening book.


Brown V. Board of Education

Brown V. Board of Education

Author: Tim McNeese

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 1438103328

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Today, integration is as much a part of America's public school system as Friday night football and complaints about cafeteria food. But America has not always opened the doors of its schools to all races. School integration occurred through the tireless efforts of countless men and women - some white, many black - who took their ideals and dreams about America and what it represents and worked to make them not only the law of the land, but acceptable to the vast majority of citizens. Here is the story of the relentless legal campaign launched by the NAACP civil rights organization and a persistent black lawyer named Thurgood Marshall, and how it changed history forever. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century.