preview

Motley's Case: Brown Vs. Board Of Education Case

Decent Essays

Constance Motley contributed in almost every significant civil rights case brought to trial between 1945 and 1965. She was the first African American woman to represent the NAACP in court. Motley’s career with the NAACP would bring her many high profile cases but involved in cases with school unification. She played a main role in the legal research for the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education case (Carson 1991, p.246). She was the first black woman to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court. She was fighting for the blacks’ rights and she was being pacified aggressive to get them into segregated schools. She was also the lead council in the case. She was part of the case to allow James Meredith to be admitted to the University of …show more content…

Board of Education ended legal segregation in public schools. This case gave everyone hope and courage. When the people settled to be plaintiffs in the case the future was uncertain and they never knew they would change history. The people who made up this story were regular people. They were teachers, secretaries, welders, ministers and students who simply wanted to be treated equally. Marshall personally argued the case before the Court. Although he elevated a change for legal issues on appeal, the most public one was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal. It interrupt the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Marshall depend on sociological tests and argued that segregated school systems had a tendency to make black children feel inferior to white children. The testing was performed by social scientist Kenneth Clark. (MacLean 2002, p.137) James Meredith applied to the all-white University of Mississippi. He was originally accepted but his admission was later deny when the administrator discovered his race. Meredith filed a suit claiming discrimination. The state courts ruled against him but the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court and it ruled in his favor. When Meredith arrived at the university to roll in for classes on September 1962, he found the entrance blocked. (Carson 1991, p.644) Rioting soon erupted and Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 500 U.S. Marshals to the scene. President John F. Kennedy sent military police, troops from the Mississippi National Guard and officials from the U.S. Border Patrol to keep the peace. In 1962 James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. After Brown v. Board of Education, public educational establishments had been ordered to unite by this time. In 1963, Meredith graduated with a degree in political science. (Roisman 2016, p.

Get Access