Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Case and Related Cases Documents

Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Case and Related Cases Documents

7,628 pages of documents related to the Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas case.

Major Document Sections in the Collection:

Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka Key Documents Volume 1: Political & Legal Documents 

507 pages of key documents concerning the Brown V. Board of Education case. 

Documents date from 1951 to 1957.  

Documents include:  

Complaint against Board of Education of Topeka. Court order, Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  

Dissenting Opinion of Judge Waites Waring in Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R. W. Elliott, Chairman, et al.  

Memorandum, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Secretary of Defense regarding Segregation in Schools on Army Posts. 

Letter from Texas Governor Allan Shivers to Dwight D. Eisenhower regarding school segregation. 

Letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower to South Carolina Governor James Byrnes stating his views on school segregation.  

Letter from Louisiana Governor Robert Kennon to Dwight D. Eisenhower. 
 
Letter from South Carolina Governor James Byrnes to Dwight D. Eisenhower.  

Letter from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Louisiana Governor Robert Kennon. Earl Warren's draft memo on the Brown case.  

Earl Warren's handwritten notes on the opinion for the decision in Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka.  

Associate Justice William O. Douglas' handwritten note on Warren's handling of the case.  

Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter's handwritten note to Earl Warren.  

Associate Justice Harold H. Burton handwritten note to Chief Justice Earl Warren.  

Felix Frankfurter's Draft Decree in Brown II. Earl Warren's handwritten notes for the final decree.

Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka Key Documents Volume 2: Political & Legal Documents 

111 pages of additional documents created all along the Eisenhower Administration. 

Includes:

Memorandum, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Secretary of Defense re: Segregation in Schools on Army Posts, March 25, 1953

Letter, Texas Gov. Allan Shivers to Dwight D. Eisenhower e: school segregation, July 16, 1953

Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to South Carolina Gov. James Byrnes stating his views on school segregation, August 14, 1953

Warren Works for Unanimity - Realizing that overturning school segregation in the South might entail a degree of social upheaval, Chief Justice Warren carefully engineered a unanimous vote, one without dissents or separate concurring opinions. Assigning the two opinions, one for state schools, one for federal, to himself, he circulated two draft memoranda with opinions to his colleagues. He proposed to put off the tricky question of implementation until later. He also set forth his idea that "opinions should be short, readable by the lay public, non-rhetorical, unemotional and, above all, non-accusatory." May 7, 1954.

Earl Warren Handwritten Notes on Opinion for Decision in Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Early in May 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren circulated draft opinions for the school desegregation cases to his colleagues on the Court. Associate Justice William O. Douglas responded enthusiastically in this handwritten note:  "I do not think I would change a single word in the memoranda you gave me this morning. The two draft opinions meet my idea exactly. You have done a beautiful job." May 11, 1954

A note sent by Associate Justice Harold H. Burton to Chief Justice Earl Warren on the day that the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board was announced. He said, "Today I believe has been a great day for America and the Court... I cherish the privilege of sharing in this." In a tribute to Warren's judicial statesmanship, Burton added, "To you goes the credit for the character of the opinions which produced the all important unanimity. Congratulations." May 17, 1954

Congratulatory Letter on the Brown Decision May 17, 1954, William L. Patterson, Executive Secretary of the Civil Rights Congress, to Walter White congratulating White on the NAACP's victory in Brown v. Board of Education.

"Segregation in Schools is Outlawed" in Topeka, Kansas. The Russell Daily News - May 17, 1954

NAACP, offering congratulations on the NAACP's victory in Brown v. Board of Education. May 18, 1954

Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Swede Hazlett, boyhood friend, Captain, USN, October 23, 1954

Frankfurter's Draft Decree in Brown II, 1955

Warren's Handwritten Final Decree

 
Florida Legislature Response to Brown v. Board of Education, 1957 

The Florida State Legislature passed this resolution in opposition to the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case that ended legal segregation in public education.

 
Integration of Dallas Public Schools FBI Files 

527 pages of FBI files covering the integration of Dallas public schools. 

The Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, did not instantly solve the problem of school segregation. A prime example was the status of the Dallas public school system in the 1950's and early 1960's. 

In a 1955 case seeking to desegregate the Dallas public school system, U.S. District Court Judge William S. Atwell ruled against the plaintiff. Judge Atwell claimed the Supreme Court in the Brown decision overstepped its authority. The NAACP sued the Dallas school system in the case of Bell v. Rippy.  In this case Atwell also ruled against the plaintiffs in 1957, claiming the Supreme Court overstepped its power in the Brown case.  In both cases, Atewell was overruled by the Fifth Circuit of Appeals. Judge Atwell crafted a plan that would desegregate Dallas public schools over approximately a twelve-year period. The Fifth Circuit also struck down Atwell's desegregation plan. In 1960, Dallas was the largest city in the Southern United States to have a segregated school system. Under order of the Fifth Circuit, Dallas began desegregating its schools in the fall of 1961. 

The files date from 1956 to 1962.  Most of the early tracking of the cases in the files are from photocopied newspaper articles. When complaints were made to the FBI by Thurgood Marshall, that Texas law enforcement tried to intimidate plaintiffs in the Bell v. Rippy case, a segregation lawsuit against the Dallas public schools, the FBI became more involved. The files chronicle some civil unrest that occurred as Dallas inched its way toward desegregation of its public school system.

 
Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County Documents 

116 pages of documents dealing with the Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County case. This early school desegregation case preceded Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Some see this case as a state level model for Brown V. Board of Education. Amicus curiae briefs were filed in this case by the NAACP, co-authored by Thurgood Marshall.

In the Fall of 1944, Gonzalo and Felicita Mendez tried to enroll their children in the Main Street School, which Gonzola had attended as a child. However, the school district had redrawn boundary lines that excluded the Mexican and Latino neighborhoods. The school district also segregated Japanese American children. However, it passed a resolution in January 1945 allowing these children to attend the Main Street School. The Mendez children were assigned to Hoover Elementary School, which was established for Latino children. Other Orange County Latino parents faced similar situations with their children.

With the help of the United Latin American Citizens (LUCAC), they joined with the Mendez family and sued four local school districts, including Westminster and Santa Ana, for segregating their children and 5,000 others.  The plaintiffs charged, "That all children or persons of Mexican or Latin descent ... are now excluded from attending, using, enjoying and receiving the benefits of the education, health and recreation facilities of certain Schools."  And "that said children are now and have been segregated and required to and must attend and use certain Schools in said District and Systems, reserved for...children and persons of Mexican and Latin descent..."

This suit was heard in both state and federal courts. At the state trial, Orange County superintendents used stereotypical imagery of Latinos to explain the basis of school policy. One declared, "Mexicans are inferior in personal hygiene, ability, and in their economic outlook." He further stated that their lack of English prevented them from learning Mother Goose rhymes and that they had hygiene deficiencies, like lice, impetigo, tuberculosis, and generally dirty hands, neck, face and ears. These he stated warranted separation.

The attorney for Mendez, David Marcus, called in expert social scientists as witnesses to address the stereotypes. He also challenged, based on the 14th Amendment, the constitutionality of education segregation. He also had Fourteen-year-old Carol Torres take the stand to counter claims that Mexican children did not speak English. Felicita Mendez also gave testimony about her family life: "We always tell our children they are Americans." It also took almost a year for state Judge Paul McCormick to make his decision. He ruled that there was no justification in the laws of California to segregate Mexican children and that doing so was a "clear denial of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment". The school districts filed an appeal, partly on the basis of a states' rights strategy.  In 1947 the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court upheld the state court's ruling and the Orange County school districts dropped the case.
 
The case resulted in the California legislature passing the Anderson bill, a measure that repealed all California school codes mandating segregation. The bill was then signed by the Governor Earl Warren, who years latter as the Chief Justice authored the opinion in Brown V. Board of Education.

Documents date from 1945 to 1946. Documents include: 

Petition from Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County: This petition summarizes the complaint made by several parents of children in the Westminster, Garden Grove, and El Modeno School Districts and the City of Santa Ana schools. It charges that the schools were violating students' civil rights by segregating students of "Mexican and Latin" ancestry in separate schools.  Answer of Westminster School District of Orange County, et al. From Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County. Petitioners' Opening Brief:  This brief presents the petitioners' detailed legal arguments against the use of segregation by several Orange County, CA, school districts.  Conclusions of the Court: This document sets forth the finding of Judge Paul J. McCormick, which was in favor of the petitioners. Judgment and Injunction:  In this judgment, Judge Paul J. McCormick barred the school district from segregating students based on race.

 
Briggs v. Elliott, 342 U.S. 350 (1952) Court Documents 

This school desegregation case, which originated in 1947 was combined with four other similar cases before the Supreme Court in the famous ruling entitled Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, et al, 1954.  

This case began with a complaint against segregated schools in Clarendon County, South Carolina charges that denying admittance to African American students based on race violates their guarantee of equal protection under the 14th Amendment. 

At the time South Carolina was one of 17 states that legally required school segregation. South Carolina law required complete segregation. Article 11, Section 7 of the 1895 Constitution of South Carolina read: "Separate schools shall be provided for children of the white and colored races, and no child of either race shall ever be permitted to attend a school provided for children of the other race." Section 5377 of the Code of Laws of South Carolina of 1942 read: "It shall be unlawful for pupils of one race to attend the schools provided by boards of trustees for persons of another race." 

In a losing effort, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP presented a vast array of social science evidence showing how segregation harmed Black school children, including evidence from sociologist Kenneth Clark's controversial "Doll Study." 

A three-judge panel heard the district case and 2-1 voted against ending school segregation in South Carolina. Judge Waties Waring wrote a dissenting opinion which foreshadows the arguments used by the Supreme Court in overthrowing the "separate but equal" doctrine which had prevailed since 1896 and Plessy v. Ferguson.

 
Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the Desegregation of New Orleans Schools (2005)

A monograph by Davison M. Douglas, Professor of Law and Director, Institute of Bill of Rights Law, School of Law, College of William and Mary. Written by the project, Federal Trials and Great Debates in United States History, produced by the Federal Judicial Center of the Federal Judicial History Office. 

Abstract: "The federal court proceedings surrounding the desegregation of New Orleans public schools revealed the difficult and lengthy process of enforcing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Every desegregation order of the federal courts in Louisiana met with the unflagging resistance of segregationists who were in full control of the state’s government. Despite their uninterrupted legal setbacks, the segregationists in the Louisiana legislature, with the support of the governor, the attorney general, and the state courts, were able to delay enforcement of even the token desegregation that initially resulted from the federal courts’ orders. The strength of the state’s segregationists nearly silenced white moderates in New Orleans. Black leadership in New Orleans largely relied on the efforts of local black lawyers and the legal arm of the NAACP, which offered the services of such respected lawyers as Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter, to keep pressure on the courts. The segregationist resistance in Louisiana was more intense than in many other struggles over desegregating schools in the South, but the story of the New Orleans school crisis illustrates a range of strategies employed by segregationists and the legal instruments available to federal judges determined to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown." 

The monograph includes a narrative of the case, a case chronology, covers the federal courts and their jurisdiction, legal questions before the courts, and legal arguments in court. Includes biographies, media coverage and public debates, transcripts of historical documents.

 
Oral History Interviews

Oral history interviews with William W. Oliver and Martin F. Richman, both were law clerks for Justice Warren.

 
Case Files of Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al., No. 1 to 5, October Term 1954

3,686 pages, made up of the three digitalized rolls of microfilm published in 2003 by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), titled, "Publication Number: M-1954, Publication Title: Appellate Jurisdiction: Case Files of Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al., No. 1 to 5, October Term 1954."

It contains transcripts and documents related to Brown. 

No. 1 October Term 1954 - Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, KS, et al.

No. 2 October Term 1954 - Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R. W. Elliot et al.

No. 3 October Term 1954 - Dorothy E. Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, VA, et al.

No. 4 October Term 1954 - Spottswood Thomas Bolling et al. v. C. Melvin Sharpe et al.

No. 5 October Term 1954 - Francis B. Gebhart et al. v. Ethel Louise Belton et al.

 
About Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Case

In the 1930's the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pursued lawsuits that sought to force admission of blacks into universities at the graduate level, where establishing separate but equal facilities would be difficult and expensive for the states. At the forefront of this movement was Thurgood Marshall, a young black lawyer who, in 1938, became general counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund. Their significant victories at this level included Gaines v. University of Missouri in 1938, Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma in 1948, and Sweatt v. Painter in 1950. In each of these cases, the goal of the NAACP defense team was to attack the "equal" standard so that the "separate" standard would in turn become susceptible.

Brown was preceded by another similar case that reached the Supreme Court first. The case was Briggs v. Elliott, and Thurgood Marshall was the main lawyer for the case. The Briggs case was named for Harry Briggs, one of twenty parents who brought suit against R.W. Elliott, the president of the school board for Clarendon County, South Carolina. Initially, parents had only asked the county to provide school buses for the black students as they did for whites. When their petitions were ignored, they filed a suit challenging segregation itself. Three years before the Supreme Court heard "Brown v. Board," the legal strategy to attack separate but equal was formed in Summerton, South Carolina, with "Briggs v. Elliott." "Briggs" was the first school funding lawsuit in South Carolina.

In 1951, Clarendon County, South Carolina, spent more than three times as much on each white child's education as it did on each black child. A black Clarendon County principal asked black parents to file a lawsuit to demand better schools for their children. The case became known as Briggs v. Elliott, and Marshall led the team of NAACP lawyers. When Briggs went to trial, Marshall showed how little money was spent on schools for black children and how their schools were not equal to schools that white children attended.

This case was heard in the Charleston District Court in May 1951 by a panel of three Federal judges. The majority ruling was that “separate but equal” schools were not in violation of the 14th amendment with Judge J. Waites Waring dissenting. The District Court did rule that the schools attended by African American children were inferior to the white schools, and they ordered the school system to equalize the facilities. 

In 1952 the Supreme Court heard the case and returned it to the district court for rehearing after Clarendon County school officials sent a report on progress in making facilities equal. In March the district court again heard the case. The Court found that progress had been made towards equality. Thurgood Marshall argued that this may be true, but that the real issue was that as long as separation existed, the schools would be unequal. 

The case was appealed again to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of segregation, Marshall argued the schools would never be equal as long and there were separate schools.  Four similar cases before the court, so all the cases were joined together and called Brown v. Board of Education.

In 1950, members of the Topeka, Kansas, Chapter of the NAACP challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine governing public education, through a class action suit when they were denied the opportunity to enroll their children in the white only schools.  The case came to be known as Brown v. Board of Education.  Although in this case and four similar cases: Harry Briggs, Jr., et al. v. R.W. Elliott, et al.; Dorothy E. Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.; Spottswood Thomas Bolling et al. v. C. Melvin Sharpe et al.; and Francis B. Gebhart et al. v. Ethel Louise Belton et al, it acknowledged some of the plaintiff’s' claims, a three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court that heard the cases ruled in favor of the school boards. The lower courts cited the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of the United States Supreme Court as precedent.

Homer Plessy, a black man from Louisiana, challenged the constitutionality of segregated railroad coaches, first in the state courts and then in the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court upheld the lower courts, noting that since the separate cars provided equal services, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment was not violated. Thus, the "separate but equal" doctrine became the constitutional basis for segregation. One dissenter on the Court, Justice John Marshall Harlan, declared the Constitution "color blind" and accurately predicted that this decision would become as baneful as the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. 

When the cases came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court consolidated all five cases under the name of Brown v. Board of Education.  This grouping was significant because it represented school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. Thurgood Marshall personally argued the case before the Supreme Court. Although he raised a variety of legal issues on appeal, the most common one was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and thus, violate the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, relying on sociological tests, such as the one performed by social scientist Kenneth Clark, and other data, he also argued that segregated school systems had a tendency to make black children feel inferior to white children, and thus, such a system should not be legally permissible. The lawyers for the school boards based their defense primarily on precedent, such as the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, as well as on the importance of states' rights in matters relating to education.

Meeting to decide the case, the Justices of the Supreme Court realized that they were deeply divided over the issues raised. While most wanted to reverse the Plessy V. Ferguson decision and to declare segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, they had various reasons for doing so. Unable to come to a solution by June 1953, the end of the Court's 1952-1953 term, the Court decided to rehear the case in December 1953. During the intervening months, however, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and was replaced by Governor Earl Warren of California. President Eisenhower believed Warren would follow a moderate course of action toward desegregation. His feelings regarding the appointment are detailed in the closing paragraphs of an October 23, 1954, letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to E. E. "Swede" Hazlett, which is a part of this document collection.

After the case was reheard in 1953, Chief Justice Warren was able to do something that his predecessor had not, bring all of the Justices to agree to support a unanimous decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On May 14, 1954, he delivered the opinion of the Court, stating that "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal..."

Expecting opposition to its ruling, especially in the southern states, the Supreme Court did not immediately try to give direction for the implementation of its ruling. Rather, it asked the attorney generals of all states with laws permitting segregation in their public schools to submit plans for how to proceed with desegregation. After still more hearings before the Court concerning the matter of desegregation, on May 31, 1955, the Justices handed down a plan for how it was to proceed; desegregation was to proceed with "all deliberate speed." Although it would be many years before all segregated school systems were to be desegregated, Brown and Brown II, as the Court's plan for how to desegregate schools came to be called, were responsible for getting the process underway.