The NAACP - Key cases (Brown vs Board of Education) and strategy

The NAACP - Key cases (Brown vs Board of Education) and strategy

1. Who were they?

   • Founded in 1909
     • Multi - racial group of civil rights campaigners
     • Headed by W.E.B. Dubois
   • Created to fight for the rights of black people
     • Oppose discrimination and racial hatred
   • Middle to upper class blacks
   • National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

2. Between 1939 - 1942 membership grew from 50,000 to 450,000

3. Best known for campaigning court cases which challenged legal basis of segregation

   • Also involved with non-violent direct action and other initiatives to empower African Americans.
     • E.g. Louisiana Progressive Voters League aimed to encourage black voting registration - sub section of NAACP
   • Why did they go to court?
     • Believed they could use the legal system to end segregation
       • American Constitution attempts to protect the rights of individuals thorough the separation of powers
     • Challenge 'Jim Crow' laws
       • Appeals to Fourteenth Amendment
         • Everyone born in the USA has full citizenship rights
       • Appeals to Fifteenth Amendment
         • All citizens have the right to vote
   • Provided funds and experienced lawyers - Thurgood Marshall
     • Support the court cases of individual black men and women who were prepared to take the authorities to court
   • Examples
     • Smith vs. Allwright 1944 - 1950
       • Lonnie E. Smith challenged these laws and the case was taken to the Supreme Court
         • Black people could only vote in Congressional elections, not primary elections
           • White primaries were part of politics in many southern states
         • Court case ruled that Texan white primary primary was illegal due to the 15th Amendment
           • This ruling applied to the whole of America - hence white primaries were outlawed everywhere
     • Morgan vs. Virginia 1946
       • Challenged segregation on interstate buses
         • 1944 - Irene Morgan was fined $100 for refusing to give up her seat for a white man
           • Morgan argued that transport segregation violated her constitutional rights
         • Case was taken to Supreme Court with Thurgood Marshall's backing
           • In 1946, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on interstate buses was illegal

4. Non-violent resistance 1945 - 55

   • Organised a series of protests in Louisiana (in the South)
     • 1947 - Picketed New Orleans' four biggest department stores for refusing to allow black customers to try on hats.
     • 1951 - tried same tactic in Alexandra in protest of the local black school closing so black children could work in the cotton fields during the cotton harvest.
     • 1953 - organised a boycott of a newly built school in Lafayette, protesting that its facilities were obviously worse than those at the local white school.