People's Lawyers: Crusaders for Justice in American History: Crusaders for Justice in American History by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781000122626
Goodreads: 54806000
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Due to his heavy caseload, he argued only six of his thirty-two Supreme Court cases alone, and he made certain that proper credit was given those who assisted him. “I never hesitated to pick other people’s brains—brains I didn’t have,” he stated.52

Brown v. Board of Education, 1950–1955

Prior to 1950, Marshall believed it would be futile to attack segregation in elementary and secondary schools. However, after winning two major victories in the Supreme Court that year on the admission of black students to graduate schools, he thought it might be possible to wage an all-out attack-on segregation in public education. Several weeks after the Court’s decisions were announced, he persuaded the NAACP to adopt a resolution stating that its priorities in the future would be “aimed at obtaining education on a non-segregated basis and that no relief other than that would be acceptable.”53

The case that he selected to launch this attack was Briggs v. Elliot. It originated in Clarendon County, South Carolina, in 1950, when Harry Briggs Jr. and eighteen other parents went to the United States District Court to demand that the segregated schools in the county be brought up to the level of white schools. The plaintiffs were backed by the local branch of the NAACP, and Marshall went to South Carolina to represent them. At the trial, which began in May 1951, he not only asked for school equalization but also urged the court to strike down the South Carolina segregation statute on the grounds that it was a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court ruled against him, and he appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

By the time the case reached the Supreme Court in 1952, four other school segregation cases were argued at the same time. In addition to the South Carolina case, there were cases in Virginia, Delaware, Kansas, and the District of Columbia. The cases were consolidated and became known as Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The NAACP sponsored four of the cases, but decided not to handle the one in the District of Columbia. The latter raised a different issue because the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection” of the laws was binding only on state jurisdictions.54

The writing of the brief led to controversy within the NAACP. Despite vigorous objections, Marshall decided not to assert that Plessy was bad law per se, but got around it by implication. Another controversial move was Marshall’s decision to file a “Brandeis Brief,” making use of studies by social scientists like Dr. Kenneth B. Clark showing the harmful effects of segregation on black children. This idea was first suggested by NAACP attorney Robert C. Carter, and Marshall supported it by maintaining that there was no reason not to use sociology, psychology, or anything else that might help to end segregation.55 Marshall managed the different factions with characteristic skill. “You had to be impressed most by the firmness with which he was in charge,” noted Attorney Charles Black, one of the NAACP’s advisers.

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