Summary
The article doesn’t exclusively describe the Brown v Board case like I was thinking. Instead, it was more than that. Early in the article, Payne says the case itself wasn’t as helpful as we are lead to believe. He goes on to mention Smith v Allwright was actually a more effective ruling. Many people are taught that Brown v Board broke the color barrier in schools, but not everybody followed the law. Some schools were desegregated, but not integrated. The concept of gradualism comes into play here. Gradualism is the thought of gradually getting to be equal. Payne says at the rate schools were being properly desegregated, it would take over a thousand years to get everybody on board. Payne points out Cell’s idea of the term “segregation.” …show more content…
Payne goes on to say that according to court rulings, such as Plessy v Ferguson, the race problem isn’t the real issue, but actually African Americans are “overly sensitive.” Another significant statement in the article is David Brion Davis said the Confederacy won the Civil War ideologically. He says the way and culture of the south were influential to the rest of the country. Therefore although the Union won the physical war, that didn’t actually do the trick. The southern culture has always been about keeping the African Americans inferior to the whites. Whites in the south had glorious lives because of this, and they didn’t want change. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama in 1963, stood outside in front of the doors of the University of Alabama so Black students couldn’t go in. This man was breaking the law by doing this, but it is said that Wallace received letters supporting him from all over the country. The letters from all over the country proves the theory of the Confederate states winning the ideological part of the Civil War. There was a wide acceptance of Black inferiority showing that the whole United States is …show more content…
After going over the article again and discussing it, I understand more of what Payne was trying to say. First off, he says the Brown v Education ruling wasn’t actually that significant. I didn’t realize this, I had always been taught that case was a fairly important turning point. In a way it still was since it put a law in place to desegregate schools, but not everybody followed the law and it wasn’t always enforced. People not following the law doesn’t surprise me though. Instead of Brown v Board, Payne says Smith v Allwright was more effective. I have never even heard of Smith v Allwright and he says it contributed greatly to Black citizens registering to vote. From there, Payne goes on and says some court rulings had basically stated Blacks are “overly sensitive.” Courts should not be considering how the races feel about each other. Later in the article, Payne talks about John W. Cell and how he said the term “segregation” is confusing, which I had never considered. Of course they would use ambiguous terms. The Whites in the south used many different terms to portray their opinions and language was used as a tool to support southern philosophies. The end of the article and possibly most intriguing was about George Wallace. I don’t ever remember hearing this story. The Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, broke the law by standing in front of an entrance of the University of Alabama and was praised for it. I’m not