Blog Post - Memories of Desegregation

"Years before the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez, an eight-year-old girl of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage, played an instrumental role in Mendez v. Westminster, the landmark desegregation case of 1946 in California"--

"Discusses the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, including the nine African-American students that successfully integrated the Arkansas school and the controversy and crisis surrounding the event"--Provided by publisher.

Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Mendez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Mendez was denied enrollment to a Whites only school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing a lawsuit in federal district court. Their success eventually brought an end to the era of segregated education...

"Long before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, the struggle to desegregate America's schools was a grassroots movement--and young women were its vanguard. In the 1940s parents and daughters began filing desegregation lawsuits, eventually forcing Thurgood Marshall and other civil rights lawyers to take the issue to the Supreme Court. After Brown v. Board, girls also far outnumbered boys in volunteering to desegregate all-white...

Dr. King’s best-selling account of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963 
 
On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter...

"The years from 1955 to 1965 are at the heart of the civil rights movement. Resistance was often met with violence against Black Americans fighting to end discrimination and segregation. Yet the courage of those yearning for equal opportunities under the law continued to persevere. The year 1960 was a turning point in the civil rights movement as young Black women and men became peaceful warriors for change. In February, four Black college students,...