Physic 1
Legislative Legacies:
Peeling Away the Layers of the Plessy v. Ferguson and
Brown v. Board of Education Rulings
Gina Physic
AA 871: African American History
December 12, 2014
Physic 2
Legislative Legacies:
Peeling Away the Layers of the Plessy v. Ferguson and
Brown v. Board of Education Rulings
“If it is a sin to aspire to conduct of a higher order than one may at the moment be
capable of, then Americans surely sinned in professing that all men are created equal –
and then acting otherwise.”
– Richard Kluger, 19751
“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.”
– Paul Laurence Dunbar, 18952
PEELING AWAY THE LAYERS
The study of history is both the study of past events and the study of historical
patterns. In considering America’s current cultural moment, there is no better time to
revisit the period that this time has the potential to mirror. The reoccurrence of law
enforcement officials (and pseudo-law enforcement) killing black men, namely Trayvon
1
Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black
America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Vintage Books, 1975) ix. It is important to
note that although this quote is used to contextualize the aims of this research and
challenge the master narrative of the American State, it can be found to be problematic in
its use of the term “Americans.” Kluger is referring, specifically, to the white male
American founders of the United States, not all Americans. It is worth noting that “white
male Americans” and “Americans” are conflated in this sense.
2
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 76. This poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a
reference to the variety of strategies employed by blacks in their ongoing liberation
struggle (74), the first stanza, as it stands alone, can also be interpreted as the voice of
those in power in America, particularly for case of this paper, the Supreme Court Justices
who ruled unanimously in favor of “separate but equal” facilities in Plessy v. Ferguson.
With this understanding, “the mask that grins and lies” becomes the American justice
system.
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Martin,3 Michael Brown,4 Eric Garner,5 and countless other African American men, has
brought issues of race and marginalization to the forefront of many Americans’ minds.
Although the aforementioned events are infuriating for many, they have opened up the
realm of possibilities for conversations regarding race within the United States. However,
in order to discuss race in America today, the historical events that led to this moment in
time must also be understood.
At a time in America where the powers that be could have leveled the playing
field for blacks and whites, race-based legislation was implemented to do just the
opposite. Furthermore, it was considered to be constitutional. Alternatively, when this
ruling was overturned, the progress was undone within decades. This research will
3
Jelani Cobb, “George Zimmerman, Not Guilty: Blood on the Leaves,” The New Yorker,
7 December 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/george-zimmerman-notguilty-blood-on-the-leaves. This piece details the anguish felt by many African
Americans when George Zimmerman was found “not guilty” of the murder of Trayvon
Martin. This event triggered social movements across the country as people questioned
the United States justice system. Cobb likens this killing to the public lynching of blacks
with a nod to Billie Holiday’s “Blood on the Leaves” in the article title.
4
Frank Vyan Walton, “Missouri AG confirms Michael Brown grand jury misled by St.
Louis DA,” Daily Kos, 7 December 2014,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1349421/-Missouri-AG-Confirms-MichaelBrown-Grand-Jury-Misled-by-St-Louis-DA#. This article details the ways that Bob
McColloch, the Missouri Attorney General, intentionally led a Missouri grand jury astray
in the police-killing case of Michael Brown. The jury would opt not to indict Darren
Wilson, the officer responsible for Brown’s murder. National protests ensued.
5
H.A. Goodman, “Eric Garner’s Death Was ‘Legal’ in the United States. America
Killed Him, Not Police,” Huffington Post, 7 December 2014,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/eric-garners-death-was-a_b_6273752.html.
Goodman questions the state of America’s justice system, noting that, “…to blame the
police for Eric Garner's demise ignores the bigger picture. A grand jury apparently
couldn't find any laws broken in the death of an American citizen whose last words were
the following: I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't
breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe.”
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investigate the personal histories of Henry Billings Brown and John Marshall Harlan, two
of the Supreme Court Justices involved in the “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson
ruling, to assess how their backgrounds and personal biases may have contributed to or
allowed for this landmark decision to be made. In addition, this paper will explore the
unanimous Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which found separate public schools for
black and white students to be inherently unequal, and thus, overturned the Plessy v.
Ferguson ruling from just fifty-eight years prior. Ultimately, this research aims to peel
away the layers of two of America’s most momentous Supreme Court rulings to reveal
the ways that the personal opinions of a few powerful men may have had the wherewithal
to shape the lives and opportunities of black and white Americans for decades to come.
RELEVANCE OF PLESSY V. FERGUSON
In 1892, Louisiana resident and American citizen, Homer Plessy, was arrested for
riding in a whites-only train car during a trip out of state.6 Plessy was selected for this
incident in the same way that Rosa Parks would be selected for the Montgomery Bus
Incident decades later – based on respectability politics. That is to say, the scenario
involving Plessy was planned. A committee of eminent African Americans from New
Orleans, who were largely Creole, coordinated and utilized this opportunity to challenge
a Louisiana statute that required railway companies to provide separate and equivalent
accommodations for whites and blacks.7 The real question at hand was whether or not it
6
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 76-7. Homer Plessy was one-eighth black and
seven-eighths white. By Louisiana standards this meant that Plessy was black, though he
likely could have passed should he have been so inclined.
7
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 76.
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was the right of a state to create and enforce such discrimination on the basis of race.
When the case went to the Louisiana State Supreme Court in the same year, Plessy and
others got their answer: the court upheld this pervasive system of state-endorsed racial
caste in finding the Louisiana Jim Crow railway statute to be constitutional,8 and in 1896,
four years later, the United States Supreme Court majority opinion endorsed that decision
in Plessy v. Ferguson.9 In turn, the Plessy decision legitimized the practice of Jim Crow
until the statute was overturned in 1954.10
The following sections will analyze Justice Henry Billings Brown’s influential
majority opinion along with Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissent, along with various
other personal documents and assessments, to determine how the two Justices’ personal
biases, backgrounds, and beliefs may or may not have shaped this cultural moment.
JUSTICE HENRY BILLINGS BROWN
As previously mentioned, Justice Brown issued the majority opinion on Plessy v.
Ferguson. The rationale behind the decision asserted that state-sanctioned racial
segregation codified social customs (i.e. the widespread practice of Jim Crow), and
furthermore, promoted social good and racial harmony.11 In addition to
8
Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American Experience (New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2001) 291. Trotter argues further that this court decision accepted the
notion of white supremacy and fomented the rise of Jim Crow.
9
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 77.
10
The Plessy v. Ferguson decision was found to be unconstitutional in 1954 by Brown v.
Board of Education and consequently, was overturned. This will be discussed further in
later sections of the research.
11
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 77.
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“constitutionalizing the prevailing prejudices of his era,”12 Brown also implemented the
“separate but equal” doctrine, stating that it was consistent with the equal protection
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and moreover, the majority decision that he issued
also represented that race was a rational, not arbitrary, classification for the delineation of
state-defined rights.13
The ability to link Brown’s majority argument to the decades of violence,
appalling inequality, and the oppressive conditions that blacks in America endured postPlessy yields an infuriating moment of clarity. It is infuriating to recognize the great
power that an ordinary man can hold in this country with the power to effect and control
an entire population of people without having their best interests at heart. However, this
moment of recognition clarifies the State’s concept of and care for blackness.
Historically, State power has been used to marginalize and oppress blacks, and that
remains true today.
It is worth mentioning that Justice Brown's criminal procedure and civil liberties
opinions reflected the general attitude of the era toward criminals, blacks, and women.14
This, however, does not excuse or justify his beliefs as a leader of the State, but it does
contextualize the Plessy decision and Brown’s understanding, or lack thereof, of race
relations in America. In order to analyze Justice Brown a bit more thoroughly, a look into
his life is vital.
12
“Brown, Henry Billings.” American National Biography Online, 11 December 2014,
http://www.anb.org/articles/11/11-00112.html.
13
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 77.
14
“Brown, Henry Billings.” American National Biography Online, 11 December 2014,
http://www.anb.org/articles/11/11-00112.html.
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Henry Billings Brown was born in Massachusetts in 1836 to a well to-do family.
Although he would have been twenty-five years old at the onset of the Civil War, there is
no evidence that he served. This is relatively uncommon, as many elite American
politicians tended to have some association with the United States military, in some
fashion, prior to their political careers. That Brown is lacking this experience means he
did not have the firsthand experience of fighting on the frontlines with blacks. Such an
experience may have shifted Brown’s ideology, if even slightly, however that is not the
case.
Brown went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Yale, and upon
graduating he traveled Europe for a year. Upon his return to the United States, Brown
attended Yale and Harvard Law Schools. In 1895, while Brown was the Associate Justice
of the United States, he delivered an address at the seventy-first anniversary of Yale Law
School.15 In the thirty-plus page speech, Brown makes various remarks that would cause
readers today to raise an eyebrow – references to the conversion of Indians, comparing
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin to Christianity, and a brief note on lynching. However, there are
two comments in particular that allow for a better understanding of Brown’s frame or
thought. Early on in his address, he sings Germany’s praises for their ability to extend
their empire. He goes on to say that,
This influence is everywhere the same – the absorption of small states –
the creation of large ones – the centralization of power in the hands of a
15
“Brown, Henry Billings.” American National Biography Online, 11 December 2014,
http://www.anb.org/articles/11/11-00112.html. Brown served as Associate Justice of the
United States Supreme Court from 29 December 1890 to 28 May 1906.
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few – the unification of people of kindred race and similar language, and
in this country a vast accession to the power of the Federal Government.16
This comment as it stands alone can only be taken for what it clearly states. Yet, there is
an eerie similarity betweem what Brown is describing and what exists today, especially in
considering “centralized power in the hands of a few… people of kindred race” and “the
vast accession to the power of the Federal Government.” Then Brown elaborates, “The
nineteenth century have given birth to large states, but at the same time it has curtailed
the privileges of the great, has expanded the area of freedom, and entrenched the people
in their natural rights.”17 That Brown believes “the people are entrenched in their natural
rights,” when whites overwhelmingly held the State’s power and blacks were just
beginning to establish themselves outside of slavery, is quite telling. It is this statement
that takes Brown’s paternalism toward a social Darwinist, white supremacist framework.
The aforementioned notions become particularly interesting when we consider
Brown’s audience for this speech. Many of America’s revered colleges and universities,
including Yale, were soaked in the sweat, the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of
color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of
16
Henry Billings Brown, “The twentieth century: an address delivered before the
graduating classes at the seventy-first anniversary of Yale Law School, on June 24th,
1895,” The Making of Modern Law, pp. 7, 11 December 2014,
http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/servlet/MOML?af=RN&ae=F3701909192&
srchtp=a&ste=14.
17
Henry Billings Brown, “The twentieth century: an address delivered before the
graduating classes at the seventy-first anniversary of Yale Law School, on June 24th,
1895,” The Making of Modern Law, pp. 7-8, 11 December 2014,
http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/servlet/MOML?af=RN&ae=F3701909192&
srchtp=a&ste=14.
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North America, and played a key role in white conquest.18 With this, it is no surprise that
Brown begins discussing the European conquest of Africa and predicts that it will
continue to the East in the twentieth century, “The lust of conquest,” he says, “like that of
acquisition, knows no bounds.”19 It is clear that Brown is unaware of the privilege he
holds as a white man. Furthermore, he is quite invested in the ways that white men at this
time were utilizing their power, and quite detached from the suffering of those who were
at the hands of such power.
JUSTICE JOHN MARSHALL HARLAN
In comparison to Justice Brown, there is a much more thorough body of literature
on Justice John Marshall Harlan. It can be assumed that this is because of his Plessy
dissent, which, although not perfect, placed him on the “right” side of history in ways that
Brown’s decision obviously did not in the long term.
Harlan was born in 1833 to a slave-owning family in a Kentucky slave society.20
This alone would lend itself to the rationalization that Harlan would have been in support
of the Plessy decision. However, his Plessy dissent has gone down in history as one of the
most important dissents of his judicial career.
18
Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of
America’s Universities (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2013) Front Cover.
19
Henry Billings Brown, “The twentieth century: an address delivered before the
graduating classes at the seventy-first anniversary of Yale Law School, on June 24th,
1895,” The Making of Modern Law, pp. 12, 11 December 2014,
http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/servlet/MOML?af=RN&ae=F3701909192&
srchtp=a&ste=14.
20
Loren P. Beth, John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice (Lexington: The
University Press of Kentucky, 1992) 11.
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In his personal life, Justice Harlan was a typical Southern gentleman,
unpretentious and simple in his tastes.21 Justice Harlan began his career in Kentucky,
working for his father prior to enlisting in the Union Army when the Civil War began.22
It is quite possible that his experience in the war reshaped his ideals of blacks. In his
Plessy dissent he stated that,
There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those
belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging
to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I
allude to the Chinese race. But by the statute in question, a Chinaman can
ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States,
while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps,
risked their lives for the preservation of the Union…are yet declared to be
criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied
by citizens of the white race.23
This portion of Harlan’s dissent is telling for many reasons. It is clearly problematic to
rank the oppressions of different minority groups, however, in Harlan’s doing so, we are
given insight into his reasons for being against the Plessy ruling. Because he fought
alongside blacks in the Union Army, Harlan sees that they are intrinsically bound to
American ideals, and their willingness to fight for such ideals is quite meaningful to
21
R. T. W. Duke, Jr., “John Marshall Harlan,” The Virginia Law Register 17, no. 7
(1911) 503, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1105239.
22
Mark Tushnet, I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2008) 47.
23
Mark Tushnet, I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2008) 76.
Physic 11
Harlan. However, we still see that Harlan has particularly strong racist views toward the
Chinese.24
Harlan’s dedication to the law was quite apparent. Justice David Josiah Brewer
remarked publicly, of Harlan, that,
All men are said to have their hobbies… Mr. Justice Harlan has a
hobby…and that is the Constitution of the United States. He has read and
studied it so assiduously that I think he can repeat it from one end to the
other, forward and backward, and perhaps with equal comprehension
either way….25
With this insight into Harlan’s appreciation and dedication to the law, his dissent
becomes more intriguing. Harlan urges that, “The terms of the thirteenth amendment are
absolute and universal. They embrace every race which then was, or might thereafter be,
within the United States. No race, as such, can be excluded from the benefits or rights
thereby conferred.”26 For a former slave-owner to deduce that blacks, as they existed in
the United States at the implementation of the thirteenth amendment, should thereby reap
its benefits, goes to show just how strongly Harlan opposed the Plessy decision – if not
for personal reasons, surely on the basis of the laws on the books. Although Harlan
believed that Anglo-Saxons were the superior racial group and that all other racial groups
24
“Chinese Exclusion Act (1882),” Our Documents, 12 December 2014,
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47. It is worth mentioning that
Harlan’s opposition to Chinese people may have been, like Brown’s disapproval of
blacks, a reflection of the common thought at the time. This is not to make an excuse for
him, but to highlight what was occurring in America in regards to his comment. The
Chinese Exclusion Act was approved on May 6, 1882 and was the first significant law
restricting immigration into the United States.
25
Loren P. Beth, John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice (Lexington: The
University Press of Kentucky, 1992) 160.
26
Mark Tushnet, I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2008) 49.
Physic 12
in the nation would eventually die out, he also contended that Anglo-Saxons would
preserve their superior status only if they fulfilled their sacred duty to protect the liberty
interests of those citizens who had traditionally been subjugated in America – particularly
African Americans.27 This paternalism should not be confused for progressiveness, but
Harlan’s thinking was quite different from his counterparts, hence his dissent. Although
Harlan embraced the robust theory of white supremacy, he emerged as one of the great
jurists of the late nineteenth century.28 This shows the power of the master narrative to
shape history by focusing on one particular event in order to tell the story it deems most
American. Yes, Harlan’s dissent is important historically, but it should not be perceived
in a vacuum as his full support of equality for all Americans.
BROWN AND HARLAN: DIFFERENCES IN OPINION
In analyzing the backgrounds of Justice Henry Billings Brown and Justice John
Marshall Harlan, we find that their understandings of society and law are multifarious
and often conflicted. Although both Justices are dedicated to upholding the American
state, they do not see eye to eye. In the aforementioned commencement address given by
Justice Harlan, he closes by saying that,
27
Davison M. Douglas, “The Surprising Role of Racial Hierarchy in the Civil Rights
Jurisprudence of the First Justice John Marshall Harlan,” Hein Online, 11 December
2014,
http://www.heinonline.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/HOL/Page?page=1037&handle=hein.journals
%2Fupjcl15&id=1057.
28
Davison M. Douglas, “The Surprising Role of Racial Hierarchy in the Civil Rights
Jurisprudence of the First Justice John Marshall Harlan,” Hein Online, 11 December
2014,
http://www.heinonline.org.ezproxy.bu.edu/HOL/Page?page=1037&handle=hein.journals
%2Fupjcl15&id=1057.
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Freedom and injustice are ill-mated companions; and at the basis of every
free government is the ability of the citizen to apply to the courts for a
redress of his grievances, and the assurance that he will there receive what
justice demands. So long as we can preserve the purity of our courts we
need never despair of the Republic.29
He preaches this message to his audience at Yale in 1895, but a year later he does the
complete opposite when he and the Supreme Court majority deem separate but equal
facilities for blacks and whites as constitutional. It becomes clear that Brown is speaking
in a coded rhetoric, where citizenship does not include blacks.
Despite his familial and economic connections to the institution of slavery,
Harlan’s read on the Plessy decision and its impact on America was fairly prophetic.30
Harlan stressed how the Plessy decision would promote interracial violence, stating that,
“In time it would prove to be quite pernicious.”31 He went on to assess that,
29
Henry Billings Brown, “The twentieth century: an address delivered before the
graduating classes at the seventy-first anniversary of Yale Law School, on June 24th,
1895,” The Making of Modern Law, pp. 7-8, 11 December 2014,
http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/servlet/MOML?af=RN&ae=F3701909192&
srchtp=a&ste=14.
30
Mark Tushnet, I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2008) 73. In Harlan’s dissent he states that, “The white race
deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in
achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power... There is no caste here. Our
constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In
respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.” Although Harlan is not
foreshadowing any particular event in this statement, he is utilizing the same rhetoric
applied today my many politicians who like to ignore issues of race in this country,
mainly colorblindness and fair protection under the law.
31
Charles A. Lofgren, The Plessy Case: A Legal Historical Interpretation (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987) 194.
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The destinies of the two races [blacks and whites] were so linked that the
interests of both require that the common government of all shall not
permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law.32
Although his statements do not necessarily mean that he cared for the black community,
they certainly suggest that he was clear about the ways laws should function and be used.
The difficulty in delineating distinct threads from the personal lives of these
Justices and their Plessy decisions is not any sole reflectio of their views, it is more likely
a result of the fluidity and arbitrariness of race in America. Although the issue at hand
was undoubtedly black and white, the construction of race had many loopholes that could
not always be accounted for, making it difficult to formulate any ideas around the topic
that were not at some point completely contrary or simply incorrect. In the analysis of
Justices Brown and Harlan it is natural and human to select a representative of bad and
good, where Brown, who enforced the Plessy decision is bad, and Harlan, who was
against the Plessy decision, is good. However, to think about the situation in this way
oversimplifies the reality of the time the decision was made. Interestingly, this is exactly
what the master narrative has done in hopes of keeping America’s dirty laundry in the
closet.
RELEVANCE OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
Brown v. Board of Education is the Supreme Court case that overturned the
“separate but equal” doctrine deemed constitutional just fifty-eight years prior. The
landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education took place in 1954 in regards to black
children and their parents in Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, South Carolina, and
Washington, D.C. Their argument was that “in the field of public education the doctrine
32
Charles A. Lofgren, The Plessy Case: A Legal Historical Interpretation (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987) 194.
Physic 15
‘separate but equal’ has no place. [And that] separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal.”33 With the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP), the Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal”
doctrine, effectively dismantling the system of Jim Crow segregationist order.
CONTEXTUALIZING BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION
The legacy of Brown v. Board is long lasting. In discussions of the American
Civil Rights Movement, Brown v. Board is seen as “a peak in an ongoing Black Freedom
Struggle dating back to the arrival of the first Africans on these shores in the seventeenth
century.”34 The landmark decision will forever be associated with its ability to end the
Jim Crow era in America. However, many historians and social scientists now question
the long-term effectiveness of this decision. The integration of elementary and secondary
schools that Brown stimulated has largely been reversed due to housing patterns,
population shifts, and white flight.35
At the time of the Brown decision, Thurgood Marshall, director-counsel of the
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. said that he was, “so happy, [he] was
numb.”36 What would he think if he were alive to see the reversal of progress spurred by
the NAACP’s hard work? What would he think if he were alive to see that law
enforcement officials are killing black men at appalling rates? Although we cannot
33
Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American Experience (New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2001) 521.
34
Leon Friedman, Brown v. Board: The Landmark Oral Argument Before the Supreme
Court (New York: The New Press, 2004) xvii.
35
Leon Friedman, Brown v. Board: The Landmark Oral Argument Before the Supreme
Court (New York: The New Press, 2004) vii.
36
“Brown v. Board: Its Impact on Education, and What it Left Undone,” Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars (Winter 2002) 4.
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answer these questions, another interesting question arises in regards to his and others’
roles in the Brown v. Board decision.
BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: WHERE ARE THE LEADERS?
With the Plessy decision, Justice Brown and Justice Harlan are very much
associated with and noted as the figureheads responsible for that cultural moment. The
Brown v. Board decision does not have figureheads associated with it in this way. The
NAACP is noted for their part in Brown v. Board, but more than anything else, the
decision is seen as a one moment in the larger Civil Right Movement.
“Brown signifies an open, tolerant, diverse, democratic, and inclusive national
culture,”37 where “signifies” is the operative word. The fact that much of Brown’s
progress has been undone maintains that the moment will continue its legacy within the
master narrative as only a signifier, and unfortunately, not as a definitive means to an
end. This also raises the question of whether or not certain cultural moments are
purposefully created by the State.
Social scientists Omi and Winant assert that, “challenges to the racial order during
periods of “normal” conditions are easily marginalized or suppressed by the state.”38
However, when equilibrium is disrupted, as it was during the Civil Rights Movement,
“the state initially resists, then attempts to absorb the challenge through a series of
reforms that are, if not entirely symbolic, at least not crucial to the operation of the racial
37
Waldo E. Martin Jr., Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1998) 236.
38
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the
1960s to the 1990s, (New York: Routledge, 1994) 84-8.
Physic 17
order.”39 Keeping this in mind, it seems that in the case of Brown v. Board, State powers
opted to take on the role of leaders within the master narrative. The noticeable absence of
the actual leaders of Brown in the master narrative is worth challenging.40 Perhaps the
fact that they are missing is America’s way of indicating via the master narrative that the
State was responsible for righting the wrongs of the Plessy decision. Although this
question may not ever be answered definitively, it is certainly worth asking, especially in
relation to Brown v. Board as such a pivotal cultural moment.
CONCLUSION
In considering the landmark decisions of Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board
of Education, it becomes clear that no matter how much the decisions impacted black and
white Americans; the decisions were not simply “black and white”. That is to say, there
were many systems at work that allowed for each of these cultural moments to occur.
From the readiness, or lack thereof, of leaders to pursue change, to the readiness of the
masses to ignite progress.
In the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson, Justice Brown and Justice Harlan’s personal
understandings of the world certainly impacted the outcome of the case, but did not fully
determine it. Harlan’s more progressive views were outnumbered by the majority, who
39
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States from the
1960s to the 1990s, (New York: Routledge, 1994) 84-8.
40
Leon Friedman, Brown v. Board: The Landmark Oral Argument Before the Supreme
Court (New York: The New Press, 2004) xvii. It is worth noting that in Friedman’s
Brown v. Board: The Landmark Oral Argument Before the Supreme Court he recognizes
that, “The series of cases that culminated in the Brown victory owed to a multitiered
strategy launched in the 1930s by the brilliant and prescient Charles Houston, Dean of
Howard University’s Law School.” He also gives credit to the various other black men
and women who played large roles in this landmark decision. The question posed here is
why the master narrative does not.
Physic 18
were emblematic of common social thought at the time; social thought that happens to be
in-line with what we consider quite racist today. In the case of Brown v. Board, a great
moment of progress for black Americans and all Americans, one can’t help but wonder
why those who were involved in the decision do not get more credit. While those who
were involved in the Plessy decision are easy to pinpoint, with entire bodies of literature
surrounding their contributions, the true leaders of the Brown decision, who happen to be
African American, are overlooked, their roles and contributions commandeered by the
State. These insights serve as reminders to challenge the social systems at work and to
challenge the master narrative. Moreover, these insights reveal the importance of African
American history and the importance of understanding it as not only the history of
African Americans, but the history of all Americans.
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