5: Civil Rights Era, Pt. 1 (De-Segregation)

Police in Birmingham, Ala., sic attack dogs on a protester.

Fifty-eight years after its change-halting decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court finally "heard" what the nation was saying about social change and responded with its change-affirming decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. The unanimous decision announced the broad principal that "separate but equal" was not acceptable under the Equal Protection Clause of  Fourteenth Amendment and that schools should be the first institutions in America to be completely desegregated. Thus began the 10-year stretch that we will call the Desegregation Era.

However, angry white Southerners had a very different era in mind: the Era of Massive Resistance. It was their way of responding to the decision in Brown and "talking back" to the Court through both words and deeds. They were in effect trying to create "non-judicial precedents," to borrow Michael Gerhardt's phrase, as a way of sending a signal about their strongly held belief that African-Americans should remain not only separate in society but also unequal.

Consider these people and events:

Massive Resistance

Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

"Bull" Connor

16th Street Baptist Church