From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Klarman Michael J

Author:Klarman, Michael J. [Klarman, Michael J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2004-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

In 1954, the Court played a vanguard role in school desegregation. Half of the nation supported Brown from the day it was decided, but it was the justices who had put the issue on the map. Many of them had to overcome serious legal doubts to invalidate segregation, but fundamental changes in the extralegal context of race relations had rendered a contrary result too unpalatable to most of them. Brown II then authorized a relaxed transition. Gradualism appealed to the justices because it enabled them to maintain their unanimity, avoid issuing unenforceable orders, assuage their consciences, and appeal to southern moderates. White northerners generally endorsed gradualism, while many white southerners interpreted the Court’s willingness to be accommodating as a sign of weakness. Southern politics moved far to the right as the region made a concerted effort at massive resistance. Given the intensity of white opposition to desegregation in the South and the president’s indifference, the justices doubted that further intervention on their part to accelerate the process would prove constructive, and they feared that it might undermine southern moderates. Aside from their condemnation of outright defiance in the Little Rock case, the justices withdrew almost entirely from the school desegregation arena for nearly a decade. When they reentered in 1963–1964, they were following, not leading, national opinion. The civil rights movement had overtaken the school desegregation process, and the political branches of the national government were now playing the vanguard role. The contribution of Brown to these developments is the main topic of the next chapter.

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