Massive Resistance and the People's Response to Forced Segregation - Essay Example

The same year that the Supreme Court ruled on Brown v. Board of Education over 100 lawmakers across the South signed the Southern Manifesto, which opposed integrated schools. State legislatures further cut off funding to any public school that allowed integration. African-Americans used this affront to their dignity to organize a concerted effort against the South's segregationist policies. On New Years Day in 1959, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized a march to condemn racial inequality.

After a prayer meeting in Richmond VA. 800 members marched on the Capitol where they passed a resolution calling for an end to Virginia's public school crisis (The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia). Two weeks later the law that removed financial support for integrated schools was overturned and led to a massive integration movement. The US Government had supported the integration of public education since the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. However, at that time there was the little political will to enforce the amendment.

Racist extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) ruled the rural south through intimidation and terror. Racist groups prevented African-Americans from voting in the South by using the threat of violence against the citizens. This would be the state of events for the next 90 years. In 1958, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act, which provided historical funding for education (1954-1972: Massive Resistance). In addition, a federal court ruling found against the school-closing law and enforced the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment resulting in the meaningful beginning of desegregation.

In conclusion, the 'Massive Resistance' movement that gained public attention in the 1950s had its origins shortly after the Civil War ended. Racist hate groups had actively promoted desegregation in the South for decades before the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. Brave students and activists organized to demand that the constitutional rights that had been won by the fourteenth amendment be implemented in the Southern schools. At this same time, the US Supreme Court gained the political courage to take a stand against the illegal activities of the Southern lawmakers.

Courageous men and women and a strong constitution were able to triumph over the injustice of the era.