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116-520: It was also one of the three successive courts that oversaw the gradual dismantling of Jim Crow laws and the separate but equal doctrine, notably in the cases Mitchell v. United States (1941) and Smith v. Allwright (1944). The Stone Court began in 1941, when Associate Justice Stone was confirmed to replace Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice. Stone had served as an Associate Justice since 1925, when President Calvin Coolidge nominated him to

232-491: A New York Times article about Louisiana requiring segregated railroad cars. The origin of the phrase "Jim Crow" has often been attributed to " Jump Jim Crow ", a song-and-dance caricature of black people performed by white actor Thomas D. Rice in blackface , first performed in 1828. As a result of Rice's fame, Jim Crow had become by 1838 a pejorative expression meaning "Negro". When southern legislatures passed laws of racial segregation directed against African Americans at

348-417: A Washington Bee editorial wondered if the "reunion" of 1913 was a reunion of those who fought for "the extinction of slavery" or a reunion of those who fought to "perpetuate slavery and who are now employing every artifice and argument known to deceit" to present emancipation as a failed venture. Historian David W. Blight observed that the "Peace Jubilee" at which Wilson presided at Gettysburg in 1913 "was

464-534: A Jim Crow reunion, and white supremacy might be said to have been the silent, invisible master of ceremonies". In Texas , several towns adopted residential segregation laws between 1910 and the 1920s. Legal strictures called for segregated water fountains and restrooms. The exclusion of African Americans also found support in the Republican lily-white movement . The Civil Rights Act of 1875 , introduced by Charles Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler , stipulated

580-471: A combination of poll taxes , literacy and comprehension tests, and residency and record-keeping requirements. Grandfather clauses temporarily permitted some illiterate white people to vote but gave no relief to most black people. Voter turnout dropped dramatically through the South as a result of these measures. In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised

696-482: A concurring opinion in Steele v Louisville & Nashville Railway Co 323 192 (1944) issued that day). Murphy used the word in five separate opinions, but after he left the court, "racism" was not used again in an opinion for two decades. It next appeared in the landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia , 388 U.S. 1 (1967). Numerous boycotts and demonstrations against segregation had occurred throughout

812-708: A constitutionally protected right of privacy , emanating from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as substantive due process. This ruling was critical even after Warren's retirement (and Fortas' untimely departure as well) for the outcome of the Roe v. Wade case which recognized the constitutional right to abortion. With the exception of the desegregation decisions, few decisions were unanimous. The eminent scholar Justice John Marshall Harlan II took Frankfurter's place as

928-491: A divided and quarrelsome court. Justice Frankfurter often took a position supporting judicial restraint in which the court took deference to the decisions of elected officials, while Justices Black and Douglas were more willing to strike down laws and precedents for what they saw as violations of constitutional rights. Murphy and Rutledge joined Black and Douglas as part of the more liberal bloc, while Jackson, Reed, and Stone tended to side with Frankfurter. Roberts often sided with

1044-476: A guarantee that everyone, regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled to the same treatment in public accommodations, such as inns, public transportation, theaters, and other places of recreation. This Act had little effect in practice. An 1883 Supreme Court decision ruled that the act was unconstitutional in some respects, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations. With white southern Democrats forming

1160-579: A huge march on Washington in August 1963, bringing out 200,000 demonstrators in front of the Lincoln Memorial , at the time the largest political assembly in the nation's history. The Kennedy administration now gave full-fledged support to the civil rights movement, but powerful southern congressmen blocked any legislation. After Kennedy was assassinated, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for immediate passage of Kennedy civil rights legislation as

1276-507: A memorial to the martyred president. Johnson formed a coalition with Northern Republicans that led to passage in the House, and with the help of Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen with passage in the Senate early in 1964. For the first time in history, the southern filibuster was broken and the Senate finally passed its version on June 19 by vote of 73 to 27. The Civil Rights Act of 1964

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1392-432: A moral groundswell that was to contribute to the emergence of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Warren was never a legal scholar on par with Frankfurter or a great advocate of particular doctrines, as were Black and Douglas. Instead, he believed that in all branches of government common sense, decency, and elemental justice were decisive, not stare decisis (that is, reliance on previous Court decisions), tradition, or

1508-461: A person interrogated while in police custody be clearly explained, including the right to an attorney (often called the " Miranda warning "). While most Americans eventually agreed that the Court's desegregation and apportionment decisions were fair and right, disagreement about the "due process revolution" continues into the 21st century. Warren took the lead in criminal justice; despite his years as

1624-464: A recess appointment by President Eisenhower; the Senate confirmed him six weeks later. Despite his lack of judicial experience, his years in the Alameda County district attorney's office and as state attorney general gave him far more knowledge of the law in practice than most other members of the Court had. Warren's greatest asset, what made him in the eyes of many of his admirers "Super Chief,"

1740-535: A segregated culture had become common. In the Jim Crow context, the presidential election of 1912 was steeply slanted against the interests of African Americans. Most black Americans still lived in the South, where they had been effectively disfranchised, so they could not vote at all. While poll taxes and literacy requirements banned many poor or illiterate people from voting, these stipulations frequently had loopholes that exempted European Americans from meeting

1856-732: A solid voting bloc in Congress, due to having outsize power from keeping seats apportioned for the total population in the South (although hundreds of thousands had been disenfranchised), Congress did not pass another civil rights law until 1957. In 1887, Rev. W. H. Heard lodged a complaint with the Interstate Commerce Commission against the Georgia Railroad company for discrimination, citing its provision of different cars for white and black/colored passengers. The company successfully appealed for relief on

1972-692: A tough prosecutor, he always insisted that the police must play fair or the accused should go free. Warren was privately outraged at what he considered police abuses that ranged from warrantless searches to forced confessions. Warren’s Court ordered lawyers for indigent defendants, in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), and prevented prosecutors from using evidence seized in illegal searches, in Mapp v. Ohio (1961). The famous case of Miranda v. Arizona (1966) summed up Warren's philosophy. Everyone, even one accused of crimes, still enjoyed constitutionally protected rights, and

2088-479: A whole. Over time, pushback and open defiance of the oppressive existing laws grew, until it reached a boiling point in the aggressive, large-scale activism of the 1950s civil rights movement. The NAACP Legal Defense Committee (a group that became independent of the NAACP) – and its lawyer, Thurgood Marshall – brought the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , 347 U.S. 483 (1954) before

2204-437: Is the clear and strong command of our Constitution's Equal Protection Clause." Unlike the desegregation cases, in this instance, the Court ordered immediate action, and despite loud outcries from rural legislators, Congress failed to reach the two-thirds needed pass a constitutional amendment. The states complied, reapportioned their legislatures quickly and with minimal troubles. Numerous commentators have concluded reapportionment

2320-616: The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin) gained prominence during the era. In baseball, a color line instituted in the 1880s had informally barred black people from playing in the major leagues , leading to the development of the Negro leagues , which featured many famous players. A major breakthrough occurred in 1947, when Jackie Robinson was hired as the first African American to play in Major League Baseball; he permanently broke

2436-599: The 79th United States Congresses. Major rulings of the Stone Court include: Stone had largely sided with the government's position when the Hughes Court struck down several pieces of New Deal legislation, and the Stone Court (with the addition of several Roosevelt appointees) consistently upheld Congressional power pursuant to the Commerce Clause. The Stone Court also upheld broad war-time powers for

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2552-538: The 91st United States Congresses. One of the primary factors in Warren's leadership was his political background, having served two and a half terms as Governor of California (1943–1953) and experience as the Republican candidate for vice president in 1948 (as running mate of Thomas E. Dewey ). Warren brought a strong belief in the remedial power of law. According to historian Bernard Schwartz , Warren's view of

2668-638: The Eight Box Law in South Carolina , acted against black and white voters who were illiterate, as they could not follow the directions. While the separation of African Americans from the white general population was becoming legalized and formalized during the Progressive Era (1890s–1920s), it was also becoming customary. Even in cases in which Jim Crow laws did not expressly forbid black people from participating in sports or recreation,

2784-753: The Freedom Summer project. The disappearance of the three activists captured national attention and the ensuing outrage was used by Johnson and civil rights activists to build a coalition of northern and western Democrats and Republicans and push Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . On July 2, 1964, Johnson signed the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. It invoked the Commerce Clause to outlaw discrimination in public accommodations (privately owned restaurants, hotels, and stores, and in private schools and workplaces). This use of

2900-728: The Reconstruction era . Such continuing racial segregation was also supported by the successful Lily-white movement . In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America and in some others, beginning in the 1870s. Jim Crow laws were upheld in 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , in which the Supreme Court laid out its " separate but equal " legal doctrine concerning facilities for African Americans. Moreover, public education had essentially been segregated since its establishment in most of

3016-460: The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren . In its pivotal 1954 decision, the Warren Court unanimously (9–0) overturned the 1896 Plessy decision. The Supreme Court found that legally mandated ( de jure ) public school segregation was unconstitutional. The decision had far-reaching social ramifications. Racial integration of all-white collegiate sports teams was high on

3132-544: The federal power in dramatic ways. It has been widely recognized that the court, led by the liberal bloc, created a major " Constitutional Revolution " in U.S. history. The Warren Court brought " one man, one vote " to the United States through a series of rulings, and created the Miranda warning . In addition, the court was both applauded and criticized for bringing an end to de jure racial segregation in

3248-535: The "coloreds only" car. Plessy refused and was immediately arrested. The Citizens Committee of New Orleans fought the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. They lost in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. The finding contributed to 58 more years of legalized discrimination against black and colored people in

3364-563: The 1880s in local areas with large black populations, but their voting was suppressed for state and national elections. States passed laws to make voter registration and electoral rules more restrictive, with the result that political participation by most black people and many poor white people began to decrease. Between 1890 and 1910, ten of the eleven former Confederate states , beginning with Mississippi , passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most black people and tens of thousands of poor white people through

3480-469: The 1920s. However, this did build the foundation for later generations to advance racial equality and de-segregation. Chafe argued that the places essential for change to begin were institutions, particularly black churches, which functioned as centers for community-building and discussion of politics. Additionally, some all-black communities, such as Mound Bayou, Mississippi and Ruthville, Virginia served as sources of pride and inspiration for black society as

3596-523: The 1930s and 1940s. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had been engaged in a series of litigation cases since the early 20th century in efforts to combat laws that disenfranchised black voters across the South. Some of the early demonstrations achieved positive results, strengthening political activism, especially in the post-World War II years. Black veterans were impatient with social oppression after having fought for

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3712-582: The ACC schools were successful in their endeavor – as Pamela Grundy argues, they had learned how to win: In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama . This was not the first time this happened – for example, Parks was inspired by 15-year-old Claudette Colvin doing the same thing nine months earlier – but the Parks act of civil disobedience

3828-509: The Commerce Clause was upheld by the Warren Court in the landmark case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States 379 US 241 (1964). By 1965, efforts to break the grip of state disenfranchisement by education for voter registration in southern counties had been underway for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall. In some areas of the Deep South, white resistance made these efforts almost entirely ineffectual. The murder of

3944-542: The Constitution gave the Court the power to order its end. Warren's faction believed the Fourteenth Amendment did give the necessary authority and were pushing to go ahead. Warren, who held only a recess appointment, held his tongue until the Senate, dominated by southerners, confirmed his appointment. Warren told his colleagues after oral argument that he believed segregation violated the Constitution and that only if one considered African Americans inferior to whites could

4060-479: The Constitution protects a general right to privacy ( Griswold v. Connecticut ); that states are bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court and cannot ignore them ( Cooper v. Aaron ); that public schools cannot have official prayer ( Engel v. Vitale ) or mandatory Bible readings ( Abington School District v. Schempp ); the scope of the doctrine of incorporation ( Mapp v. Ohio , Miranda v. Arizona )

4176-400: The Court in the spring of 1953. However the justices had been unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in fall 1953, with special attention to whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks. While all but one justice personally rejected segregation, the self-restraint faction questioned whether

4292-451: The Court would never be able to find a clear formula to guide lower courts in the rash of lawsuits sure to follow. But Douglas found such a formula: "one man, one vote." In the key apportionment case Reynolds v. Sims (1964) Warren delivered a civics lesson: "To the extent that a citizen's right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen," Warren declared. "The weight of a citizen's vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives. This

4408-408: The Court's purview. For years underpopulated rural areas had deprived metropolitan centers of equal representation in state legislatures. In Warren's California, Los Angeles County had only one state senator. Cities had long since passed their peak, and now it was the middle class suburbs that were underrepresented. Frankfurter insisted that the Court should avoid this "political thicket" and warned that

4524-487: The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment broadly, outside of the incorporation context (see Ferguson v. Skrupa , but see also Griswold v. Connecticut ). The Warren Court's decisions were also strongly nationalist in thrust, as the Court read Congress's power under the Commerce Clause quite broadly and often expressed an unwillingness to allow constitutional rights to vary from state to state (as

4640-483: The Frankfurter bloc, but was more conservative than the other eight justices. Though outnumbered, the more liberal bloc led by Black and Douglas often took the majority in cases by peeling off the votes from the moderate bloc, and the two groupings of justices did not form as tight of blocs as they did in later decades. The short length of the Stone Court gave it little chance to establish a definitive legacy. However,

4756-527: The Jim Crow era, libraries were only available sporadically. Prior to the 20th century, most libraries established for African Americans were school-library combinations. Many public libraries for both European-American and African-American patrons in this period were founded as the result of middle-class activism aided by matching grants from the Carnegie Foundation . In some cases, progressive measures intended to reduce election fraud, such as

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4872-437: The Jim Crow laws were generally overturned in 1965 . Formal and informal racial segregation policies were present in other areas of the United States as well, even as several states outside the South had banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted by white-dominated state legislatures ( Redeemers ) to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by African Americans during

4988-478: The Jim Crow laws, and the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine. In 1954, segregation of public schools (state-sponsored) was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka . In some states, it took many years to implement this decision, while the Warren Court continued to rule against Jim Crow legislation in other cases such as Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964). In general,

5104-615: The Jim Crow system. The decisive action ending segregation came when Congress in bipartisan fashion overcame Southern filibusters to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . A complex interaction of factors came together unexpectedly in the period 1954–1965 to make the momentous changes possible. The Supreme Court had taken the first initiative in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), declaring segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Enforcement

5220-741: The President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights enforcement legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings soon began on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended legally sanctioned state barriers to voting for all federal, state and local elections. It also provided for federal oversight and monitoring of counties with historically low minority voter turnout. Years of enforcement have been needed to overcome resistance, and additional legal challenges have been made in

5336-501: The South after the Civil War in 1861–1865. Companion laws excluded almost all African Americans from the vote in the South and deprived them of any representative government. Although in theory, the "equal" segregation doctrine governed public facilities and transportation too, facilities for African Americans were consistently inferior and underfunded compared to facilities for white Americans ; sometimes, there were no facilities for

5452-466: The South. As the civil rights movement gained momentum and used federal courts to attack Jim Crow statutes, the white-dominated governments of many of the southern states countered by passing alternative forms of resistance. Historian William Chafe has explored the defensive techniques developed inside the African American community to avoid the worst features of Jim Crow as expressed in

5568-435: The South. One rationale for the systematic exclusion of African Americans from southern public society was that it was for their own protection. An early 20th-century scholar suggested that allowing black people to attend white schools would mean "constantly subjecting them to adverse feeling and opinion", which might lead to "a morbid race consciousness". This perspective took anti-black sentiment for granted, because bigotry

5684-719: The Southern agenda in the 1950s and 1960s. Involved were issues of equality, racism, and the alumni demand for the top players needed to win high-profile games. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of flagship state universities in the Southeast took the lead. First they started to schedule integrated teams from the North. Finally, ACC schools – typically under pressure from boosters and civil rights groups – integrated their teams. With an alumni base that dominated local and state politics, society and business,

5800-653: The Stone Court continued the Constitutional Revolution of 1937 that had started during the Hughes Court and foreshadowed the liberal rulings of the Warren Court . Jim Crow laws The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation , " Jim Crow " being a pejorative term for an African American . The last of

5916-669: The Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo  – an appointee of the President ;– was heard to express his opinion of black and white women working together in one government office: "I feel sure that this must go against the grain of the white women. Is there any reason why the white women should not have only white women working across from them on the machines?" The Wilson administration introduced segregation in federal offices, despite much protest from African-American leaders and white progressive groups in

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6032-514: The Union address , Johnson asked Congress to "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined." On June 21, civil rights workers Michael Schwerner , Andrew Goodman , and James Chaney disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi , where they were volunteering in the registration of African American voters as part of

6148-481: The United States , incorporating the Bill of Rights (i.e. including it in the 14th Amendment Due Process clause), and ending officially sanctioned voluntary prayer in public schools . The period is recognized as the most liberal point that judicial power had ever reached, but with a substantial continuing impact. The Warren Court began on October 5, 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren ,

6264-505: The United States and freedom across the world. In 1947 K. Leroy Irvis of Pittsburgh 's Urban League, for instance, led a demonstration against employment discrimination by the city's department stores. It was the beginning of his own influential political career. After World War II, people of color increasingly challenged segregation, as they believed they had more than earned the right to be treated as full citizens because of their military service and sacrifices. The civil rights movement

6380-685: The United States. In 1908, Congress defeated an attempt to introduce segregated streetcars into the capital. White Southerners encountered problems in learning free labor management after the end of slavery, and they resented African Americans, who represented the Confederacy 's Civil War defeat: "With white supremacy being challenged throughout the South, many whites sought to protect their former status by threatening African Americans who exercised their new rights." White Southerners used their power to segregate public spaces and facilities in law and reestablish social dominance over black people in

6496-581: The Warren Court as a " Carolene Products Court". This referred to the famous Footnote Four in United States v. Carolene Products , in which the Supreme Court had suggested that heightened judicial scrutiny might be appropriate in three types of cases: The Warren Court's doctrine can be seen as proceeding aggressively in these general areas: The Warren Court, while in many cases taking a broad view of individual rights, generally declined to read

6612-774: The backdrop of church bombings and assassinations. In summer 1963, there were 800 demonstrations in 200 southern cities and towns, with over 100,000 participants, and 15,000 arrests. In Alabama in June 1963, Governor George Wallace escalated the crisis by defying court orders to admit the first two black students to the University of Alabama . Kennedy responded by sending Congress a comprehensive civil rights bill, and ordered Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to file federal lawsuits against segregated schools, and to deny funds for discriminatory programs. Martin Luther King launched

6728-586: The bench. During the Court's 1932–37 terms, Stone and justices Brandeis and Cardozo formed a liberal bloc called the Three Musketeers that generally voted to uphold the constitutionality of the New Deal . At the beginning of Stone's chief-justiceship, the Court consisted of Stone, Owen Roberts , Hugo Black , Stanley F. Reed , Felix Frankfurter , William O. Douglas , Frank Murphy , James F. Byrnes , and Robert H. Jackson (the latter two joined

6844-484: The black community at all. Far from equality, as a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, political and social disadvantages and second-class citizenship for most African Americans living in the United States. After the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909, it became involved in a sustained public protest and campaigns against

6960-584: The color bar. Baseball teams continued to integrate in the following years, leading to the full participation of black baseball players in the Major Leagues in the 1960s. Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1953 to 1969 when Earl Warren served as the chief justice . The Warren Court is often considered the most liberal court in U.S. history. The Warren Court expanded civil rights , civil liberties , judicial power , and

7076-555: The court days after Stone's elevation to Chief Justice). In October 1942, Byrnes resigned from the court to become the war-time Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization ; Roosevelt appointed Wiley Blount Rutledge as his replacement. Owen Roberts retired in July 1945, and President Harry Truman appointed Harold Hitz Burton to replace him. Shortly before V-E Day , Truman named Justice Jackson to serve as U.S. Chief of Counsel for

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7192-716: The courts to ensure the ability of voters to elect candidates of their choice. For instance, many cities and counties introduced at-large election of council members, which resulted in many cases of diluting minority votes and preventing election of minority-supported candidates. In 2013, the Roberts Court , in Shelby County v. Holder , removed the requirement established by the Voting Rights Act that Southern states needed Federal approval for changes in voting policies. Several states immediately made changes in their laws restricting voting access. The Jim Crow laws and

7308-641: The decision in Cooper was personally signed by all nine justices, with the three new members of the Court adding that they supported and would have joined the Court's decision in Brown v. Board . Fallon says that, "Some thrilled to the approach of the Warren Court. Many law professors were perplexed, often sympathetic to the Court's results but skeptical of the soundness of its constitutional reasoning. And some of course were horrified." Professor John Hart Ely in his book Democracy and Distrust famously characterized

7424-467: The early 1960s, the homicide rate doubled in the period from 1964 to 1974 from just under 5 per 100,000 at the beginning of that period to just under 10 per 100,000 in 1974. Controversy exists about the cause, with conservatives blaming the Court decisions, and liberals pointing to the demographic boom and increased urbanization and income inequality characteristic of that era. After 1992 the homicide rates fell sharply. The Warren Court also sought to expand

7540-506: The end of the 19th century, these statutes became known as Jim Crow laws. In January 1865, an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery in the United States was proposed by Congress and ratified as the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865. During the Reconstruction era of 1865–1877, federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen , African Americans who were former slaves, and

7656-444: The fifth vote for his liberal majority. William J. Brennan, Jr. , a liberal Democrat appointed by Eisenhower in 1956, was the intellectual leader of the faction that included Black and Douglas. Brennan complemented Warren's political skills with the strong legal skills Warren lacked. Warren and Brennan met before the regular conferences to plan out their strategy. Brown v. Board of Education 347 U.S. 483 (1954) banned

7772-599: The first African American justice, Thurgood Marshall to the court. The Warren Court concluded on June 23, 1969 when Earl Warren retired and was replaced by Warren E. Burger . Prominent members of the Court during the Warren Court era besides the Chief Justice included Associate Justices: Brennan , Douglas , Black , Frankfurter , and Harlan II . Presidents during this court included Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy , Lyndon B. Johnson , and Richard Nixon . Congresses during this court included 83rd through

7888-434: The government. The Stone Court was less deferential in the area of civil liberties, striking down laws in cases such as Barnett , although Korematsu was a major exception to this trend. Despite Roosevelt's appointment of seven of the nine justices (and the elevation of Stone), the justices held independent views and often found each other at odds in regard to civil liberties. Stone himself received criticism for presiding over

8004-619: The grounds it offered "separate but equal" accommodation. In 1890, Louisiana passed a law requiring separate accommodations for colored and white passengers on railroads. Louisiana law distinguished between "white", "black" and "colored" (that is, people of mixed European and African ancestry). The law had already specified that black people could not ride with white people, but colored people could ride with white people before 1890. A group of concerned black, colored and white citizens in New Orleans formed an association dedicated to rescinding

8120-781: The high rate of lynchings in the South were major factors that led to the Great Migration during the first half of the 20th century. Because opportunities were very limited in the South, African Americans moved in great numbers to cities in Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western states to seek better lives. African American athletes faced much discrimination during the Jim Crow era with white opposition leading to their exclusion from most organized sporting competitions. The boxers Jack Johnson and Joe Louis (both of whom became world heavyweight boxing champions ) and track and field athlete Jesse Owens (who won four gold medals at

8236-594: The incumbent governor of California, to replace Fred Vinson as Chief Justice of the United States. The court began with Warren and the remaining eight members of the Vinson Court : Hugo Black , Stanley Forman Reed , Felix Frankfurter , William O. Douglas , Robert H. Jackson , Harold Hitz Burton , Tom C. Clark , and Sherman Minton . Jackson died in 1954 and Minton retired in 1956, and they were replaced by John Marshall Harlan II and William J. Brennan Jr. . Another vacancy occurred when Reed retired in 1957 and

8352-471: The judiciary must seek to do justice, placed him with the latter group, although he did not have a solid majority until after Frankfurter's retirement in 1962. Warren was a more liberal justice than anyone had anticipated. Warren was able to craft a long series of landmark decisions because he built a winning coalition. When Frankfurter retired in 1962 and President John F. Kennedy named labor union lawyer Arthur Goldberg to replace him, Warren finally had

8468-455: The latter as "conventional reasoning patterns," Professor G. Edward White suggests Warren often disregarded these in groundbreaking cases such as Brown v. Board of Education , Reynolds v. Sims and Miranda v. Arizona , where such traditional sources of precedent were stacked against him. White suggests Warren's principles "were philosophical, political, and intuitive, not legal in the conventional technical sense." Warren's leadership

8584-498: The law was pragmatic, seeing it as an instrument for obtaining equity and fairness. Schwartz argues that Warren's approach was most effective "when the political institutions had defaulted on their responsibility to try to address problems such as segregation and reapportionment and cases where the constitutional rights of defendants were abused." A related component of Warren's leadership was his focus on broad ethical principles, rather than narrower interpretative structures. Describing

8700-467: The law. Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat elected from New Jersey, but he was born and raised in the South, and was the first Southern-born president of the post- Civil War period. He appointed Southerners to his Cabinet . Some quickly began to press for segregated workplaces, although the city of Washington, D.C., and federal offices had been integrated since after the Civil War. In 1913, Secretary of

8816-488: The law. The group persuaded Homer Plessy to test it; he was a man of color who was of fair complexion and one-eighth "Negro" in ancestry. In 1892, Plessy bought a first-class ticket from New Orleans on the East Louisiana Railway. Once he had boarded the train, he informed the train conductor of his racial lineage and took a seat in the whites-only car. He was directed to leave that car and sit instead in

8932-399: The legal system, unbalanced economic power, and intimidation and psychological pressure. Chafe says "protective socialization by black people themselves" was created inside the community in order to accommodate white-imposed sanctions while subtly encouraging challenges to those sanctions. Known as "walking the tightrope", such efforts at bringing about change were only slightly effective before

9048-501: The majority of the state's population. By 1910, only 730 black people were registered, less than 0.5% of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was." The cumulative effect in North Carolina meant that black voters were eliminated from voter rolls during the period from 1896 to 1904. The growth of their thriving middle class

9164-436: The members of the Court. The unanimity Warren achieved helped speed the drive to desegregate public schools, which came about under President Richard M. Nixon . Throughout his tenure in the bench, Warren succeeded in keeping all decisions concerning segregation unanimous. Brown applied to schools, but soon the Court enlarged the concept to other state actions, striking down racial classification in many areas. Congress ratified

9280-487: The minority of black people who had been free before the war. In the 1870s, Democrats gradually regained power in the Southern legislatures as violent insurgent paramilitary groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan , White League , and Red Shirts disrupted Republican organizing, ran Republican officeholders out of town, and lynched black voters as an intimidation tactic to suppress the black vote. Extensive voter fraud

9396-513: The nation's – priorities from issues of property rights to civil liberties. Under Warren the courts became an active partner in governing the nation, although still not coequal. Warren never saw the courts as a backward-looking branch of government. The Brown decision was a powerful moral statement. His biographer concludes, "If Warren had not been on the Court, the Brown decision might not have been unanimous and might not have generated

9512-502: The new restrictions. Those who could not vote were not eligible to serve on juries and could not run for local offices. They effectively disappeared from political life, as they could not influence the state legislatures, and their interests were overlooked. While public schools had been established by Reconstruction legislatures for the first time in most Southern states, those for black children were consistently underfunded compared to schools for white children, even when considered within

9628-643: The north and midwest. He appointed segregationist Southern politicians because of his own firm belief that racial segregation was in the best interest of black and European Americans alike. At the Great Reunion of 1913 at Gettysburg , Wilson addressed the crowd on July 4, the semi-centennial of Abraham Lincoln 's declaration that " all men are created equal ": How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic, as state after state has been added to this, our great family of free men! In sharp contrast to Wilson,

9744-632: The old, much more moderate NAACP in taking leadership roles. King organized massive demonstrations, that seized massive media attention in an era when network television news was an innovative and universally watched phenomenon. SCLC, student activists and smaller local organizations staged demonstrations across the South. National attention focused on Birmingham , Alabama, where protesters mostly young teenagers, faced off against Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor , Connor arrested 900 on one day alone. The next day Connor unleashed billy clubs, police dogs, and high-pressure water hoses to disperse and punish

9860-432: The openness of American society to change and reform, and the decency of the administration of criminal justice received both creative and enduring impetus from the work of the Warren Court." Important decisions during the Warren Court years included decisions holding segregation policies in public schools ( Brown v. Board of Education ) and anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional ( Loving v. Virginia ); ruling that

9976-519: The over-representation of rural areas in state legislatures, as well as the under-representation of suburbs. Central cities – which had long been under-represented – were now losing population to the suburbs and were not greatly affected. Warren's priority on fairness shaped other major decisions. In 1962, over the strong objections of Frankfurter, the Court agreed that questions regarding malapportionment in state legislatures were not political issues, and thus were not outside

10092-591: The police had to respect those rights and issue a specific warning when making an arrest. Warren did not believe in coddling criminals; thus in Terry v. Ohio (1968) he gave police officers leeway to stop and frisk those they had reason to believe held weapons. Conservatives angrily denounced the "handcuffing of the police." Violent crime and homicide rates shot up nationwide in the following years; in New York City, for example, after steady to declining trends until

10208-461: The policymaking prerogatives of the White House and Congress. Hugo Black and William O. Douglas led the opposing faction that agreed the court should defer to Congress in matters of economic policy, but felt the judicial agenda had been transformed from questions of property rights to those of individual liberties, and in this area courts should play a more central role. Warren's belief that

10324-442: The practice be upheld. But he did not push for a vote. Instead, he talked with the justices and encouraged them to talk with each other as he sought a common ground on which all could stand. Finally he had eight votes, and the last holdout, Stanley Reed of Kentucky, agreed to join the rest. Warren drafted the basic opinion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and kept circulating and revising it until he had an opinion endorsed by all

10440-470: The presidential election resulted in the government withdrawing the last of the federal troops from the South. White Democrats had regained political power in every Southern state. These Southern, white, " Redeemer " governments legislated Jim Crow laws, officially segregating the country's population. Jim Crow laws were a manifestation of authoritarian rule specifically directed at one racial group. Black people were still elected to local offices throughout

10556-422: The process in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Warren did compromise by agreeing to Frankfurter's demand that the Court go slowly in implementing desegregation; Warren used Frankfurter's suggestion that a 1955 decision (Brown II) include the phrase "all deliberate speed." The Brown decision of 1954 marked, in dramatic fashion, the radical shift in the Court's – and

10672-592: The prosecution of high-ranking German officials accused of war crimes at the 1945–46 Nuremberg trials . As a result, Jackson was absent for one entire Court term, and his fellow justices had to do an extra amount of work during the term. Stone died on April 22, 1946, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage . Truman subsequently appointed Fred Vinson as Stone's successor. Presidents during this court included Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman . Congresses during this court included 77th through

10788-410: The remaining Jim Crow laws were generally overturned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Southern state anti-miscegenation laws were generally overturned in the 1967 case of Loving v. Virginia . The earliest known use of the phrase "Jim Crow law" can be dated to 1884 in a newspaper article summarizing congressional debate. The term appears in 1892 in the title of

10904-433: The requirements. In Oklahoma , for instance, anyone qualified to vote before 1866, or related to someone qualified to vote before 1866 (a kind of " grandfather clause "), was exempted from the literacy requirement; but the only men who had the franchise before that year were white or European-American. European Americans were effectively exempted from the literacy testing, whereas black Americans were effectively singled out by

11020-584: The scope of application of the First Amendment. The Court's decision outlawing mandatory school prayer in Engel v. Vitale (1962) brought vehement complaints by conservatives that echoed into the 21st century. Warren worked to nationalize the Bill of Rights by applying it to the states. Moreover, in one of the landmark cases decided by the Court, Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Warren Court affirmed

11136-556: The segregation of public schools. The very first case put Warren's leadership skills to an extraordinary test. The Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP (a small legal group formed for tax reasons from the much better known NAACP ) had been waging a systematic legal fight against the "separate but equal" doctrine enunciated in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and finally had challenged Plessy in a series of five related cases, which had been argued before

11252-413: The strained finances of the postwar South where the decreasing price of cotton kept the agricultural economy at a low. Like schools, public libraries for black people were underfunded, if they existed at all, and they were often stocked with secondhand books and other resources. These facilities were not introduced for African Americans in the South until the first decade of the 20th century. Throughout

11368-419: The text of the Constitution. He wanted results that in his opinion reflected the best American sentiments. He felt racial segregation was simply wrong, and Brown , whatever its doctrinal defects, remains a landmark decision primarily because of Warren's interpretation of the equal protection clause. The one man, one vote cases ( Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims ) of 1962–1964, had the effect of ending

11484-562: The three voting-rights activists in Mississippi in 1964 and the state's refusal to prosecute the murderers, along with numerous other acts of violence and terrorism against black people, had gained national attention. Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965 , by county and state troopers on peaceful Alabama marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge en route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery , persuaded

11600-459: The word " racism " into the lexicon of U.S. Supreme Court opinions in Korematsu v. United States , 323 U.S. 214 (1944). In his dissenting opinion, Murphy stated that by upholding the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Court was sinking into "the ugly abyss of racism". This was the first time that "racism" was used in Supreme Court opinion (Murphy used it twice in

11716-480: The young demonstrators with a brutality that horrified the nation. The brutality undermined the image of a modernizing progressive urban South. President John F. Kennedy , who had been calling for moderation, threatened to use federal troops to restore order in Birmingham. The result in Birmingham was compromise by which the new mayor opened the library, golf courses, and other city facilities to both races, against

11832-527: Was also used. In one instance, an outright coup or insurrection in coastal North Carolina led to the violent removal of democratically elected Republican party executive and representative officials, who were either hunted down or hounded out. Gubernatorial elections were close and had been disputed in Louisiana for years, with increasing violence against black Americans during campaigns from 1868 onward. The Compromise of 1877 to gain Southern support in

11948-411: Was characterized by remarkable consensus on the court, particularly in some of the most controversial cases. These included Brown v. Board of Education , Gideon v. Wainwright , and Cooper v. Aaron , which were unanimously decided, as well as Abington School District v. Schempp and Engel v. Vitale , each striking down religious recitations in schools with only one dissent. In an unusual action,

12064-418: Was chosen, symbolically, as an important catalyst in the growth of the post-1954 civil rights movement ; activists built the Montgomery bus boycott around it, which lasted more than a year and resulted in desegregation of the privately run buses in the city. Civil rights protests and actions, together with legal challenges, resulted in a series of legislative and court decisions which contributed to undermining

12180-546: Was dramatically increased; reading an equal protection clause into the Fifth Amendment ( Bolling v. Sharpe ); holding that the states may not apportion a chamber of their legislatures in the manner in which the United States Senate is apportioned ( Reynolds v. Sims ); and holding that the Constitution requires active compliance ( Gideon v. Wainwright ). Warren took his seat January 11, 1954, on

12296-417: Was energized by a number of flashpoints, including the 1946 police beating and blinding of World War II veteran Isaac Woodard while he was in U.S. Army uniform. In 1948 President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 , ending racial discrimination in the armed services. That same year, Silas Herbert Hunt enrolled in the University of Arkansas , effectively starting the desegregation of education in

12412-530: Was explicitly manifested in Cooper v. Aaron ). Professor Rebecca Zietlow argues that the Warren Court brought an expansion in the "rights of belonging", which she characterizes as "rights that promote an inclusive vision of who belongs to the national community and facilitate equal membership in that community". Archibald Cox , who as Solicitor General from 1961 to 1965 saw the Court up close, summarized: "The responsibility of government for equality among men,

12528-427: Was his political skill in manipulating the other justices. Over the years his ability to lead the Court, to forge majorities in support of major decisions, and to inspire liberal forces around the nation, outweighed his intellectual weaknesses. Warren realized his weakness and asked the senior associate justice, Hugo L. Black , to preside over conferences until he became accustomed to the drill. A quick study, Warren soon

12644-505: Was in fact, as well as in name, the Court's chief justice. When Warren joined the Court in 1954 all the justices had been appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry S. Truman , and all were committed New Deal liberals . They disagreed about the role that the courts should play in achieving liberal goals. The Court was split between two warring factions. Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson led one faction, which insisted upon judicial self-restraint and insisted courts should defer to

12760-526: Was outlawed for businesses with 25 or more employees, as well as apartment houses. The South resisted until the last moment, but as soon as the new law was signed by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, it was widely accepted across the nation. There was only a scattering of diehard opposition, typified by restaurant owner Lester Maddox in Georgia. In January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson met with civil rights leaders. On January 8, during his first State of

12876-647: Was rapid in the North and border states, but was deliberately stopped in the South by the movement called Massive Resistance , sponsored by rural segregationists who largely controlled the state legislatures. Southern liberals, who counseled moderation, were shouted down by both sides and had limited impact. Much more significant was the civil rights movement, especially the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) headed by Martin Luther King Jr. It largely displaced

12992-541: Was replaced by Charles Evans Whittaker . Burton then retired in 1958, and Eisenhower appointed Potter Stewart in his place. When Frankfurter and Whittaker retired in 1962, then-President John F. Kennedy appointed two new justices: Byron White and Arthur Goldberg . In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson encouraged Goldberg to resign to become Ambassador to the United Nations, and nominated Abe Fortas to take his place. Clark retired in 1967, and Johnson appointed

13108-457: Was slowed. In North Carolina and other Southern states, black people suffered from being made invisible in the political system: "[W]ithin a decade of disfranchisement, the white supremacy campaign had erased the image of the black middle class from the minds of white North Carolinians." In Alabama , tens of thousands of poor whites were also disenfranchised, although initially legislators had promised them they would not be affected adversely by

13224-499: Was the Warren Court's great "success" story. In Gideon v. Wainwright , 372 U.S. 335 (1963) the Court held that the Sixth Amendment required that all indigent criminal defendants receive publicly funded counsel (Florida law at that time required the assignment of free counsel to indigent defendants only in capital cases); Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436 (1966) required that certain rights of

13340-569: Was the most powerful affirmation of equal rights ever made by Congress. It guaranteed access to public accommodations such as restaurants and places of amusement, authorized the Justice Department to bring suits to desegregate facilities in schools, gave new powers to the Civil Rights Commission ; and allowed federal funds to be cut off in cases of discrimination. Furthermore, racial, religious and gender discrimination

13456-462: Was widespread in the South after slavery became a racial caste system. Justifications for white supremacy were provided by scientific racism and negative stereotypes of African Americans . Social segregation, from housing to laws against interracial chess games, was justified as a way to prevent black men from having sex with white women and in particular the rapacious Black Buck stereotype. In 1944, Associate Justice Frank Murphy introduced

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