The Supreme Court s Support For Segregation - 1886 Words

The Supreme Court’s support for segregation in public transportation, decided in Plessy v. Ferguson, surged the implementation of the â€Å"separate but equal† doctrine into an array of facilities affecting everyday lives, including schools. The facilities and schools reserved for Blacks were strikingly separate but not equal to the services available for Whites. Blacks received out-dated, hand-me-down textbooks, school buildings lacked stability and comfort and Black students overall, were not given the same opportunities as White students. Whether the tangible inequalities such as the textbooks or desks were significant or not, â€Å"the comfortable assumption of the biological, cultural, and social superiority of the white race† proved to not†¦show more content†¦Alfred H. Kelly, author of â€Å"The School Desegregation Case,† begins his account of the journey the NAACP lawyers took to succeed in Brown v. Board of Education of the City of Topek a, with the minor but evident improvement of the political and economic status acquired by Blacks since the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Blacks increasingly became more influential; fighting to escape the â€Å"inferior status† of a stranded â€Å"ex-slave† and progressing towards the â€Å"genuine integration of the Negro into the social, economic, and political fabric of American life† (Kelly 245-6). Such improvements between the Plessy and Brown cases enabled the victory of desegregation for the revolutionary NAACP lawyers. Political influence expanded for Blacks who made up an â€Å"elite† of professional individuals in large cities in the North. The power to vote and their â€Å"alliances with local urban political machines† gave them some input on local decisions and later on a more national scale under FDR’s New Deal. A wave of â€Å"jobs, pay ratings, union memberships† and intensified acknowledgements of â€Å"th e cold realities of American racial segregation,† extended the economic power available to Blacks during WWII (Kelly 247). The â€Å"altered position of the Negro in America;† from neglected and helpless individuals, to influential â€Å"lawyers, doctors, schoolteachers, social workers, [and] ministers,† was necessary for the social, economic and political power earned