The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, during the congressional Reconstruction era. The amendment’s most significant provision -- “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” -- created the potential for two interpretations. It seemed to some that the civil rights that Congress intended to protect were extremely broad and guaranteed equal rights for all. However, the provision also could be interpreted to guarantee equal protection of political and legal rights but not social rights. In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the Supreme Court handed down decisions in a number of cases that would determine the legal meaning of that provision. In each case the court gave a narrow reading to the amendment. Finally, in 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court handed down an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment that would last for nearly a century. The decision declared that the “equal-protection” clause permitted the separation of races in public facilities as long as the facilities were equal because if “ . . . one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them on the same plane.”

Objectives:

1. Students will examine primary documents and factual references to analyze the history of the struggle to end segregation in public education.

2. Students will be able to identify the strategy used by the NAACP to overturn the Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

3. Students will be engaged in historical research and critical analysis.

4. Students will be able to identify how events in the twentieth century affected the campaign to end segregation and be able to analyze the historical context within which the struggle to end segregation took place.

Lesson: Writing the history of Alice Paul and the NWP

Activity One: Researching the History of
Jim Crow/Segregation in the United States

The struggle to end legal segregation took place at a particular time in our history. It is important to fully understand that context.

Divide the class into four groups. Assign each group one of the following topics:

a. Fourteenth Amendment and Plessy v. Ferguson
b. the history of Jim Crow and the overall effects of legal
segregation
c. effects of segregation on public education (K through 12 and
postsecondary)
d. The NAACP and its role in the struggle to reverse the Plessy
decision

Have each group share its research on the assigned topic with the class.

Ask the students to use their textbooks and the following websites to research their assigned topics.

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module20/index.php

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/escaping.htm

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_plessy.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_org_naacp.html

http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/pec01.html

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module20/index.php

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/search/display_results.php?id=GLC08259

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/ docs_archive_Douglass_letter3.html

Images of racial segregation:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/images/br0020as.jpg

http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/history/escaping.htm

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/

http://www.library.vcu.edu/jbc/speccoll/pec01.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/

a. the background facts of the cases
b. the argument that the state would make in each case (The
students will need to anticipate and address as many opposing
arguments as possible.)
c. the historical context of the cases

The following websites provide summaries and some analysis of the cases:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/

http://www.landmarkcases.org/

http://www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmsupremecourt.html

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-case-order/

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/conlaw/sepbutequal.htm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1894713


The full text of each case may be found on this website:

http://www.brownat50.org/brownCases/BrownCasesFrameset.html

1. Brown v. Board of Education II (1955)
2. Little Rock Nine
3. Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County
(Virginia)
4. James E. Swann et al., Petitioners, v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Board of Education, et al.
5. Keyes, et al. v. School District No. 1, Denver, Colorado

Have each group share its research on the assigned topic with the class.

The following websites provide primary and secondary resources:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/teachers/module21/index.php

http://brownat50.org/brownCases/BrownCasesFrameset.html

http://www.oyez.org/oyez/frontpage

Little Rock Nine:

http://www.centralhigh57.org/1957-58.htm

http://www.ardemgaz.com/prev/central/

http://louisianahistory.ourfamily.com/arkansas/littlerock9.html

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/brown50/

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/school.pdf
(scholarly account of school desegregation)

http://pbskids.org/wayback/civilrights/features_school.html

1. Analyze the strategy used by the NAACP to overturn the
separate-but-equal doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson.
2. To what extent did the 1954 Brown decision achieve the
broader goals of ending segregation and achieving integration
in public schools in the decades that followed the decision?