Discover the stories behind the seismic events that came to define the long battle for civil rights in the US
BROWN VS BOARD OF EDUCATION RULING, 17 MAY 1954
In the 1950s, America was a place of deep division. Racism reigned supreme, with the Deep South having legalised racial segregation through the Jim Crow laws. Since the late 19th century, the southern states had clung to the mantra of “separate but equal” – and when it came to separating facilities for black and white Americans, they excelled.
Every aspect of life – from what schools children could attend, to what water fountains people could drink from – was separated by race. In Florida, for instance, black and white children’s textbooks couldn’t even be kept in the same building. But making facilities “equal” proved less of a priority. Schools reserved for black children were typically much worse than those attended by their white counterparts, with shoestring budgets and overcrowded classrooms.
However, in 1954 the US Supreme Court transformed the situation. After hearing about Linda Brown, a black girl who couldn’t enrol at her local school in Kansas because of segregationist policies (as well as hearing other cases concerning school segregation), the court unanimously ruled that separating public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional.
Although this landmark ruling was followed up the next year by a second act that muddied the waters – in 1955, Brown vs Board of Education II told schools to integrate with “all deliberate speed”, which many southern institutions used as an excuse to stall their desegregation efforts – Brown vs Board of Education is still seen as a crucial moment in the early Civil Rights Movement. After all, if segregation was unconstitutional in the classroom, why was it permissible anywhere else?
THE LYNCHING OF EMMETT TILL, AUGUST 1955
Emmett Till – a 14-year-old black teenager from Chicago – was a fish out of water when he visited his family in rural Mississippi in the summer of 1955. Unschooled in the ways of the South, his interaction with a local white woman called Carolyn Bryant put a target on his back.
It’s still unknown exactly what transpired between them, as eyewitness accounts vary wildly. But whatever took place, it resulted in two men – Carolyn’s h
