Voice of Thurgood Marshall:
You see, we were always looking for that one case to end all of it. We recognize there is a terrific problem and now is the time to get around to having our constitution apply to all sections of the country equally and to the same effect in a more or less uniform fashion.
Gilbert King, author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America:
When he did the Brown v. Board case, he was able to bring in historians, sociologists, legal consultants, Supreme Court clerks. He was so thorough and so complete in his work. Nobody could see it any other way.
Reporter:
In a unanimous decision, the nine Supreme Court Justices ruled racial segregation in publicly supported schools to be unconstitutional.
Announcer:
The Supreme Court rules in 1954 that pupils cannot be segregated by law on the basis of race. It is a far reaching ruling.
Wil Haygood, author of Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America (2015):
1954, Brown v. Board of Education happened to have been the year that I was born. So I often picture my mother going over to the bassinets 'cause she had twins, me and a twin sister, and even psychologically she could say to her two, just born babies, "Hey, the world's going to change and you're going to be able to experience in theory now what all of the white children in the country are experiencing."
Thurgood Marshall:
It was a unanimous decision and had the broadest possible language, which should set for rest once and for all, the problem as to whether or not second class citizenship segregation could be consistent any longer with the law of the country.
Haygood:
Brown v. Board of Education desegregated the public school system, but it did more than that, of course, it showed all the white America that they needed to start thinking of blacks as fellow citizens, first class citizens, and not second class citizens going through certain doors, using certain bathrooms.
Marshall:
We have a five point program already in effect, which will clean up and end segregation on the coaches in the south. Then we are going to the bus transportation area. The program to get Negroes into hospitals without segregation.
Sherrilyn Ifill, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at the Howard University School of Law:
When Brown was decided, 1954, it was a huge powerful win for sure. But we all know what came immediately after.
Reporter:
The white Citizens' Councils had promised to picket on the opening day of school.
George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, 1963:
I draw the line in the gust and toss the gauntlet before the theater tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
Sheryll D. Cashin, author and the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at Georgetown University:
Brown stimulates massive resistance across the south. In Virginia, many counties just shut public schools down rather than being forced to integrate.
Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd:
There is no mixing of the races in the public schools of Virginia and there is no turmoil, no confusion, no chaos as a result of that.
Marshall:
Delay cannot be occasioned simply because of disagreement of some people with the decision of the court.
Voice of Thurgood Marshall:
I had thought, we'd all thought that once we got the Brown case, the thing was gonna be over. That was when we should have sat down and planned, the other side did. The other side planned all these delaying tactics they could think of and so they took the initiative and we ended up blocking their blocking tactics. By that time, we lost all of our initiative.
Ifill:
His belief was that law was gonna do it. So imagine winning in 1954 and then litigating desegregation cases in every county 'cause there's resistance happening.
Marshall:
The Supreme Court can't go around from county to county, and state to state, to enforce. Under our American form of government, the one thing that Negroes rely on to hold their strength in facing their government against other people constantly pulling on is the belief and the supported belief that they can get justice in the court.
President Lyndon Johnson:
The people who have this big emotional reaction on the other side, we're not acting over these past three generations in defiance of law. They were acting in compliance with the law is interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States on a decision of 1896. Now that has been completely reversed and it is going to take time for them to adjust their thinking and their progress.
Marshall:
If you look back, you might get the idea that we put some trust in the decency of man maybe. So I say I think the major blame was on us in not pushing, not planning and letting it go by default, I guess.
Ifill:
Marshall says if there's one thing I think we did wrong, it was after the decision we didn't fully sit down and strategize how to deal with what would likely be resistant. We didn't believe that the resistance would be as strong as it was. I think it's perfectly fine to underestimate virulent white supremacy. I think every black person, one day or another, has underestimated how virulently white supremacy exists in this country.
Interviewer:
You mentioned last time that you want to talk about Little Rock, like to talk about Little Rock this morning.
Voice of Thurgood Marshall:
Well, Little Rock was rough. It was rough in all kinds of ways.
Reporter:
Do you have any idea that you will be able to get the students in this fall semester?
Marshall:
I have every hope that it can be done and I reasonably expect that it will be done.
Voice of Thurgood Marshall:
We went down there to try the case and you never knew what would happen the next day or deed the next hour.
Reporter:
Marshall, do you have any comment on this extraordinary action of these lawyers walking out? Have you ever seen that happen before in a hearing?
Marshall:
I've never seen it happen before. That's the only comment.
Voice of Thurgood Marshall:
That was one of the toughest ones we had. We had to come up here to the Supreme Court, I don't know how many times, back and forth, and eventually we persuaded Eisenhower to send those troops down. I didn't think he would, but he did.
President Dwight Eisenhower:
We are a nation in which laws, not men, are supreme. can not be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.
Announcer:
To the eyes of the world, the fact of violence tended to obscure the true meaning of Little Rock. Its importance was that it demonstrated to those who opposed integration that they would ultimately have to give way. Negro's rights would be upheld by the federal government.
