Desegregation of Schools: the History of School Desegregation

The movement to desegregate schools was a multi-decade effort to reform public school systems throughout the United States. The movement to desegregate schools culminated with the 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which ruled that separating students by race was unconstitutional.

Follow the timeline of US public school desegregation from post–Civil War America to today.

• A legacy of racial discrimination: Following the end of slavery, the passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution (also known as the Reconstruction Amendments), and the 1860s and 1870s Reconstruction of southern states, public school education was theoretically open to all students regardless of creed or color. In practice, however, white students received preferential treatment compared to Black students (and later Hispanic and Asian students), as local legislatures established separate schools based on race. School segregation particularly afflicted southern states like Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, where Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation. Northern cities without Jim Crow laws had unwritten rules that clumped Black American students into substandard schools.
• The myth of “separate but equal”: In the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, the US Supreme Court condoned the existence of racially segregated public facilities (including public schools) provided that they were “separate but equal.” In spite of this Supreme Court decision, racially segregated schools were not of equal quality. Schools reserved for white children often received the vast majority of public resources, while Black students toiled in substandard buildings and received outdated textbooks and minimal school supplies.
• A burgeoning Civil Rights Movement: By the middle of the twentieth century, activists began steering the public focus toward the obvious inequality between white schools and those created for non-white races. A number of court rulings would lay the groundwork for school integration, including the 1936 Maryland Supreme Court case University of Maryland v. Murray, the 1947 federal court case Westminster School Dist. v. Mendez, the 1948 US Supreme Court case Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, and the 1950 US Supreme Court case McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.
• Brown v. Board: The landmark lawsuit that would abolish the practice of separate white schools and Black schools was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. While the named plaintiff was Oliver Brown, the case was a class-action lawsuit brought by multiple parents against the Topeka school board. Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), represented the parents. Oral arguments in the case took place in 1952, and in 1954 the court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, issued a unanimous ruling that school segregation was inherently unconstitutional. The court formally overruled its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision and ordered the immediate desegregation of schools in Washington, DC, which the federal government controlled. The court asked for additional oral arguments to guide its desegregation plans for US states.
• Brown II: In a 1955 ruling known as Brown II, the Supreme Court ordered all federal judges to institute nationwide school desegregation “with all deliberate speed.” This was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement.
• Massive resistance: Despite the federal court orders, desegregation did not come easily. White parents and politicians put up a frantic resistance to the mixing of white and non-white students. At Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, a group of nine Black American students dubbed the Little Rock Nine attempted to break the post-Brown color barrier in 1957. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus tried to block their entry by using the state’s National Guard to keep the students out of the school. This caught the attention of US President Dwight Eisenhower, who sent federal soldiers to escort the students to school. This was but one event that exemplified the struggle in actually implementing the Supreme Court's order.
• Progress in the 1960s: A number of federal government actions advanced the desegregation cause in the 1960s. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited segregated schools from receiving federal funding. It also gave the federal government permission to file civil rights cases on behalf of segregated students. The 1968 US Supreme Court ruling in Green v. County School Board of New Kent County demanded the total desegregation of schools “root and branch.”
• Experiments with busing: Due to racially segregated housing patterns, many students ended up in segregated schools by virtue of living in racially homogenous neighborhoods. School districts responded by attempting to bus students to schools outside of their own districts. This resulted in massive resistance in many regions—particularly from white parents whose children were being bussed to majority Black schools outside of their neighborhood. Busing was ruled legal in the 1971 US Supreme Court case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, but the practice fell out of favor in the 1980s and 1990s.
• Ongoing resistance: To this day, a great number of American public schools face de facto segregation. “White flight” from the 1960s through the 1990s caused some white parents to abandon urban life and move to suburbs that were more ethnically homogenous. In some states, it’s common for counties to cut property taxes—a primary source of public school funding. White families then use their tax savings to enroll their children in private schools, which tend to be overwhelmingly white. Such practices continue today.

The purpose of desegregating schools was threefold.

1. 1. Separate didn’t mean equal. Despite the orders of the 1896 Supreme Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision, racially segregated facilities rarely enjoyed equal investment. From elementary schools all the way to public universities, marginalized students rarely benefited from the same resources as their white counterparts.
2. 2. Integrated schools are essential for an integrated society. Keeping races segregated during childhood led to lifelong segregation among some adults in the US. Racial integration in all aspects of public life helps reduce instances of racial bias and harmful stereotypes.
3. 3. Education predicts future prosperity. Civil Rights leaders of the twentieth century drew a clear line from educational attainment to later business success and accumulated wealth. By targeting education, forward-thinking leaders saw a path toward more equitable outcomes for US residents of all races.

There’s a lot of information that history textbooks don’t cover, including the ways in which systems of inequality continue to impact everyday life. With the MasterClass Annual Membership, get access to exclusive lessons from Angela Davis, Dr. Cornel West, Jelani Cobb, John McWhorter, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Sherrilyn Ifill to learn about the forces that have influenced race in the United States.