The Long Path to Equality by Meryl Kwan

Often, the lifespan of the civil rights movement is said to be from about 1954 to 1965. However, throughout the early twentieth century, individuals and groups worked for changes in the law and in public policy that they hoped would bring justice for all people in the United States. This process alone adds years to the timeline often given for the civil rights movement.

One might say that the modern civil rights movement began with a setback. In 1896, the U. S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in a case called Plessy v. Ferguson that strengthened segregation in the United States. The Court said that separate but equal facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. This amendment guarantees Americans equal protection under the law. The verdict on Plessy v. Ferguson meant that any state could make laws that separated whites and nonwhites. As a result, many states, especially those in the South, enacted laws that mandated separate schools, separate seating in movie theaters, and even separate hospital wards.

From that time on, people began working to end segregation laws. In 1909, a group of African American and white activists founded the NAACP, an organization dedicated to securing educational and economic equality for all races. By the late 1920s, the organization was pushing ahead with efforts to change segregation laws. One of the group’s main goals was to prove that separate schools were not equal, nor could they be. From the 1930s on, Charles Houston, an NAACP lawyer, documented examples showing that segregated schools were unequal.

Houston and Thurgood Marshall, another NAACP lawyer, argued an important court case in Maryland in 1936. This was the case of Murray v. Pearson. Donald Murray, an African American college graduate, wanted to attend the University of Maryland Law School. But that school admitted only whites. Marshall argued that according to the concept of “separate but equal,” either Maryland must set up an equal law school for black students, or the state must allow black students to attend the existing law school.

Lawyers representing Raymond A. Pearson, president of the university, countered that Murray could receive an equal education in another state. Houston and Marshall showed that to practice in Maryland, a lawyer must study Maryland law. Therefore, an education in another state could not be called equal. Eventually, the state’s highest court agreed with Thurgood Marshall’s argument. The University of Maryland had to allow Donald Murray to attend its law school.

This court decision affected only the state of Maryland. However, its success made the NAACP lawyers work even harder to bring a case to the U. S. Supreme Court. Such a case might result in a ruling that segregation itself was unconstitutional. Finally, in 1953, the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas went before the high court. In this case, Thurgood Marshall argued that all public schools in the United States should be integrated because racially separate schools were not equal. He presented the evidence that he and Houston had been gathering for years. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Marshall and his clients. From then on, public schools would have to admit students of all races.

This success, along with other factors, seemed to galvanize people all over the United States. Within a space of twelve years, civil rights activists integrated buses, lunch counters, and the voting booth. However, although many of those achievements seemed to happen overnight, they had actually taken years of planning, work, failures, and renewed efforts.

Interestingly, the end of “separate but equal” also put an end to many enterprises and institutions that were established for and by African Americans. One well-known example is the Negro Leagues. These were leagues of baseball teams made up of African American players. At that time major league teams refused to hire black players. Watched mainly by black spectators, Negro League teams featured fine athletes such as Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson. When major league baseball was integrated in 1947 by the hiring of Jackie Robinson, many of these players were signed up to major league teams. The Negro Leagues did not last much longer. However, most African Americans believed that the gains made by the civil rights movement, which enabled more of them to move into the mainstream of American life, well outweighed any losses of exclusively African American businesses or services.

Which item(s) may serve as evidence that the civil rights movement started before 1954, as Kwan claims?

the founding of the NAACP
Murray v. Pearson
Civil rights activists boycotting for intergrated bus

Items i and ii

Only item ii

Items i, ii, and iii

Only item i