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Fourteenth Amendment • Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Plessey v. Furgesson (1896) "The object of the [Fourteenth A]mendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either." = Separate but Equal
Brown v. Board of Education (1954) • state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. The Warren Court's unanimous decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Declaration of Constitutional Principles – Submitted by Ninety-six Southern Congressmen • The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law. • The Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution of checks and balances because they realized the inescapable lesson of history that no man or group of men can be safely entrusted with unlimited power. They framed this Constitution with its provisions for change by amendment in order to secure the fundamentals of government against the dangers of temporary popular passion or the personal predilections of public officeholders. • We regard the decisions of the Supreme Court in the school cases as a clear abuse of judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal Judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people. • The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States. • The very Congress which proposed the amendment subsequently provided for segregated schools in the District of Columbia.
“I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”- Alabama governor George Wallace, Inaugural Address, January 14, 1963
Seattle Restrictive Covenants • Greenlake neighborhood • "No person or persons of Asiatic, African, or Negro blood, lineage or extraction shall be permitted to occupy a portion of said property or any building thereon except a domestic servant or servants who may actually and in good faith be employed by white occupants of such premises." • Lake City neighborhood • "No person of African, Japanese, Chinese, or of any other Mongolian descent shall be allowed to purchase, own or lease said real property or any part thereof." • faith employed by white occupants of such premises." • Bellevue • "No person other than one of the white and Gentile and Caucasian race shall be permitted to occupy any property in said addition or portion of a building theron except a domestic servant" • Kenmore • "None of this property shall be sold, leased or rented to any person or persons other than of Caucasian race use or occupy said premises." • Sammamish • "nor shall any part thereof, be used or occupied by any person of the Malay or any Asiatic race or descent, or any person of the races commonly known as the Negro races, or of their descent.."
Black Panther Party 10-Point Plan (1966) 1. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities' education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society. 2. We want completely free health care for all black and oppressed people. 3. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States. 4. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression. 5. We want full employment for our people. 6. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalists of our Black Community. 7. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings. 8. We want decent education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. 9. We want freedom for all black and oppressed people now held in U. S. Federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country. 10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people's community control of modern technology
