Key Terms:
Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas: 1954 Supreme Court case in which racial segregation in public schools was outlawed. Montgomery bus boycott: Protest in 1955-1956 by African American against racial segregation in the bus system on Montgomery, Alabama.
Integration: Process of bringing people of different races together.

Setting the Scene: * In August 1945, Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, called a young man named Jackie Robinson into his office. * In 1947, Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African American to play in the Major Leagues * He was named Rookie of the Year in 1947. * In 1949, he was voted the league's most valuable player.

The Rise of African American Influence: * Before and during World War II, African Americans were not treated as equals by a large portion of American society. * After the war, the campaign for civil rights began to accelerate * African American Migration: * After the Civil War, many African Americans migrated to large northern cities * Between 1910 and 1940, the black population of New York City leaped from 60,000 to 450,000. * The New Deal: * Under Roosevelt, the number of African Americans working for the federal government increased significantly. * World War II: * During the war, increased demands for labor in northern cities led to a rise in the black population in the North. * This increase in numbers gave African Americans considerable voting power in some northern cities. * Another impact of WWII was ideological * Rise of the NAACP: * The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People * Worked hard in the courts to challenge segregation laws throughout the country * One of the NAACP’s greatest asset was its legal team * Thurgood Marshall “Mr. Civil Rights” fought battles over segregation in the courts and achieved great gains * Oliver Hill won many civil right suits that focused on issues discrimination in education and wages * They chipped away at the “separate but equal” clause of Plessy v. Ferguson.
Brown v. Board of Education: * In 1951, Oliver Brown sued the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education to allow his 8-year-old daughter Linda to attend a nearby school for whites only. * Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of Brown and against segregation in America's schools. * On May 17, 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court issued its historic ruling. * In a unanimous decision, the Court declared that the “separate but equal” doctrine was unconstitutional and could not be applied to public education.
Reaction to Brown v. Board of Education: * The reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision was mixed. * Many whites even if they didn’t agree with the decision accepted the decision and hoped that desegregation could happen peacefully. * President Eisenhower, who privately disagreed with the Brown ruling, said only that “the Supreme Court has spoken and I am sworn to uphold the constitutional processes in this country, and I am trying. I will obey.” * The congressional representatives of states in the Deep South joined together in March 1956 to protest the Supreme Court's order to desegregate public schools. * The Ku Klux Klan also became more active, threatening those who advocated acceptance of the Brown decision. * More than 90 members of Congress expressed their opposition to the Court's ruling in what was known as the “Southern Manifesto.”
The Montgomery Bus Boycott: * In 1955, the nation's attention shifted from the courts to the streets of Montgomery, Alabama * In December, Rosa Parks, a seamstress who had been the secretary of the Montgomery NAACP for 12 years, took a seat in the middle section of a bus, where both African Americans and whites usually were allowed to sit. * When a white man got on at the next stop and had no seat, the bus driver ordered Parks to give up hers. She refused. * Martin Luther King, Jr., the 26-year-old minister of the Baptist church where the original boycott meeting took place, soon became the spokesperson for the protest movement. * Over the next year, 50,000 African Americans in Montgomery walked, rode bicycles, or joined car pools to avoid the city buses. * Finally, in 1956, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation, like school segregation, was unconstitutional.
Resistance in Little Rock: * In the fall of 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus declared that he could not keep order if he had to enforce integration, or the bringing together of different races. * Governor Faubus posted Arkansas National Guard troops at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and instructed them to turn away the nine African American students who were supposed to attend the school that year. * 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford * Eisenhower then sent soldiers to Arkansas to protect the nine students.
Other Voices Of Protest: * African Americans were not the only minority group to demand equal rights after World War II * Mexican Americans also struggled to achieve equality * In 1953, however, the government adopted a new approach, known as “termination,” which sought to eliminate reservations altogether. * For Native Americans, the civil rights advances of the 1950s were mere tokens of the real gains that were needed.