The Southern Case for School SegregationKilpatrick, James Jackson
History
The Southern Case for School Segregation
Kilpatrick, James Jackson
African Americans -- Segregation; Segregation -- Southern States
Last of the four cases to be heard was in Delaware, where the State
Chancellor on April 1, 1952, entered an order directing the admission
of a number of Negro children to the public schools of New Castle
County on a nondiscriminatory basis (87 A.2d 862). The evidence
was not in dispute: The colored high school students were denied
admission to Claymont High School and were required instead to attend
Howard High School in neighboring Wilmington. Elementary pupils were
barred from Hockessin School No. 29 and required instead to attend
the all-Negro Hockessin School No. 107. The Chancellor found that
inequalities did in fact exist, in teacher training, pupil-teacher
ratio, extracurricular activities, transportation, physical plant,
and the like. Though he was inclined to agree that segregation in
itself “results in Negro children, as a class, receiving educational
opportunities which are substantially inferior to those available
to white children,” the Chancellor was unwilling to decide the
case on this new ground. On the merits of their case alone, under
the separate-but-equal rule, the Negro plaintiffs were entitled to
immediate relief. On August 28, 1952, the Supreme Court of Delaware
affirmed (91 A. [2d] 127). And the Supreme Court of the United
States, having granted certiorari in each of the cases, set them for
joint argument December 9-11, 1952.
IV
The Supreme Court of the United States then was headed by Fred M.
Vinson of Kentucky, as Chief Justice. Others who heard the ten hours
of argument that December were Hugo L. Black of Alabama, Felix
Frankfurter of Massachusetts, William O. Douglas of Connecticut,
Robert H. Jackson of New York, Harold H. Burton of Ohio, Tom C. Clark
of Texas, Sherman Minton of Indiana, and Stanley Reed of Kentucky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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