Separate but not Equal: The Supreme Court's First Decision on Racial Discrimination in Schools

Chapter 1 A Tale of Two Browns: Constitutional Equality and Unequal Education

“…The political disenfranchisement of African Americans coupled with the judicial denial of civil and educational equality (e.g., Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education , 1899, discussed further) precipitated a downward spiral, creating a state of public education that would become the central contention in Brown (Kousser, 1980). Massive financial discrimination against conveniently segregated African American schools often left black schoolchildren without tax-supported school buildings.…”

“…The ruling gave southern states a license to deny public high schools to African Americans. It was not until 1945 when Richmond County funded another full four-year public high school for its black students (Kousser, 1980), while the number of public high schools for white students in Georgia increased from 4 in 1904 to 122 in 1916.…”

The Schooling of Southern Blacks: The Roles of Legal Activism and Private Philanthropy, 1910-1960

“…The strategy the NAACP adopted came to 23. Kousser [1980] reviews events leading up to the Cummings case, offers interpretations of Justice Harlan's opinion in the case, and analyzes the consequences of Cummings for Southern education. 24.…”

“Better for Us than it was For Her”: African American Families, Communities, and Reform in Modern Georgia

“…Writing the unanimous Court decision, Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan stated that Augusta's action did not contravene the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause. 23 In 1891, the state General Assembly segregated railroad passenger cars and streetcars, and after the collapse of the Populist Movement, Georgia effectively disfranchised black men by means of the poll tax, literacy tests, and the white primary. Whereas 53 percent of eligible black men voted in 1876, only 4 percent voted by 1904.…”