Elizabeth Eckford Case Study

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In May of 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topika, Kansas, that the separate was not equal in regards to segregation of public schools due to race. In doing this the court sent integration of public schools into effect. This movement of integration also helped start Civil Rights Movements that lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. But there were social and political consequences that affected the ways integration was viewed by different groups of people in the United States. When looking into the ways this court case effected the public we should first analysis what it is saying. In Document 1 Chief Justice Warren discloses the overall ruling of separate not being In Elizabeth Eckford’s case this ruling changed her life and many others like her as shown in document 3. Elizabeth was one of nine Little Rock students selected to be the first to integrate in the Arkansas school, but she was also the only student unaware of the plan that had been put into place where they would all meet and go into class together. When she looked back on her first day at the school she talked about how nervous she got when approaching Little Rock Central High School. When the mob outside of the school saw her coming they began to crowd around her screaming “Lynch her!” and telling her people like her couldn’t get into their school. Trying to get into the school Elizabeth tried to squeeze her way past the guards who were put in place to help her, but they refused to let her though. Eventually the fear overcame Elizabeth and she ran through the crowd to a nearby bench. Elizabeth and others like her believed that maybe this was their big step toward equality, but even the people who were there to help James Meredith, the first recorded African American man to attend the university, had decided that due to the lack of higher education that he would apply to Ole Miss. In this document Meredith notes that he was no longer scared of being injured or killed the night before he went to Oxford because he was sure that even if that did happen someday someone would take his place in the push for equality. When fighting broke out he was unaware for the most part because it was at the other end of the campus. It wasn’t until the next morning that he was informed of what had gone on over the night. Sometime later he saw a man from his home town who said to him, “If you’re here to get an education, I’m here for you. If you’re here to cause trouble, I’m against you.” James Meredith believed that that was a fair price to pay. Overall the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education did have some good come out of it including influencing the Civil Rights movement, but it did cause some social and political problems. After the analysis of the ruling, back lash from it as shown in the Southern Manifesto, and the way it affected Elizabeth Eckford and James Meredith socially. Although this was a big step for the movement it also made it very obvious how backward some of the people in America at the time and we’re still seeing those lasting affects

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