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[[portion of newspaper clipping continued]]
New York Times.
Copyright, 1954, by The New York Times Company.
NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1954.

[[boxed]] 
LATE CITY EDITION
Fair and cool today. Mostly sunny, continued cool tomorrow.
Temperature Range Today - Max., 68; Min. 58
Temperatures Yesterday - Max. 69; Min., 61
Full U. S. Weather Bureau Report, Page 51 
[[/boxed]]

[[continued]]
BANS SCHOOL SEGREGATION; 
ION GRANTS TIME TO COMPLY
Eisenhower Bars Report
[[/continued]]

1896 RULING UPSET
Separate but Equal Doctrine Held Out of Place in Education
[[/portion of newspaper clipping]]

Brown v. Board of Education-(1954)

When the Supreme Court in 1954 came to address itself to the momentous problem of school segregation in the United States, it was dealing with a practice which was so solidly entrenched that fully 40% of the country's school enrollment was affected by it. (No less than 17 Southern and Border states and the District of Columbia actually required segregation, while three others exercised a local option to permit it in certain areas.) 
 
The Brown v. Board of Education case was one of five presented to the Supreme Court in the fall of 1952, the others having originated in Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The Court heard the cases and then, at the end of the June term, scheduled them for reargument the following October.
 
In the interim, however, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died, necessitating the appointment of a successor to occupy this all-important post. Former California governor Earl Warren, named to head the High Court, was unquestionably instrumental in clarifying the issue as to whether segregation itself denied the equal protection of the laws. 

On May 17, 1954, he delivered the opinion of the Court declaring that segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional, the inconclusive language of the 14th Amendment notwithstanding. The opinion was unanimous; not even a separate concurrence was written.

"We conclude," Warren said, "that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' (Ed. Note: the dictum of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896) has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." 

Integration at the University of Mississippi: James Meredith - (1962)

Meredith v. Mississippi, although not a legal citation, does serve to describe the clash between a 29-year-old Negro Air Force veteran and university authorities on the all-white campus of "Ole Miss."

In June 1962, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Meredith's application for enrollment at the University of Mississippi had been rejected solely on racial grounds, and hence directed his admission to the school. After frantic legal maneuvers designed to keep him from enrolling, Meredith underwent a grueling 10-day ordeal during which, among other things, he was blocked in the school doorway by Mississippi governor Ross Barnett, and later prevented from entering the college administrative offices. On September 30, President John F. Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard, and dispatched a detachment of U. S. Army troops to Memphis on stand-by alert. After two deaths, and injuries to scores of people, James Meredith walked through the doors of "Ole Miss" for the first time.

Having finished one semester at Mississippi, Meredith held a press conference and announced that he had concluded that "the 'Negro' should not return. . . ."

"However, he continued, "I have decided that I, J. H. Meredith, will register for the second semester."

Meredith graduated on August 18, 1963.

[[caption]] University of Mississippi students are stopped at the door of their dormitory by members of the National Guard who had been called into service during the Meredith crisis. (WIDE WORLD PHOTOS) [[/caption]]
[[image - black and white photograph showing five young white men being held back by two African-American soldiers in uniform [[/caption]]

Courtesy of NEGRO ALMANAC

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