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History
Probably the most famous case in the history of the LDF was Brown v. Board of
Education, the landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court explicitly
outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities. During the
civil rights protests of the 1960s, LDF represented and provided counsel for Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.
During the Mississippi Freedom Summer LDF’s Jackson, Mississippi office, headed
by Marian Wright Edelman, handled more than 120 cases.
Robert L. Carter, first as assistant general counsel of and later as general
counsel of the LDF, won numerous cases on the association's behalf at the United
States Supreme Court.
Prominent cases
1940s
1938: Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada invalidated state laws that refused
African American students access to all-white state graduate schools when no
separate state graduate schools were available for African Americans. (Handled
by Thurgood Marshall for the NAACP before the formal foundation of LDF.)
1940: Alston v. School Board of City of Norfolk, a federal court order that
African American public school teachers be paid equal salaries regardless of
race.
1940: Chambers v. Florida overturned the convictions — based on coerced
confessions — of four young black defendants accused of murdering an elderly
white man.
1944: Smith v. Allwright was an early voting rights case in which the Supreme
Court required Texas to allow African Americans to vote in primary elections.
1946: Morgan v. Virginia desegregated seating on interstate buses.
1947: Patton v. Mississippi ruled against strategies that excluded African
Americans from criminal juries.
1948: Shelley v. Kraemer overturned racially discriminatory real estate
covenants
1948: Sipuel v. Oklahoma State Regents reaffirmed and extended Missouri ex rel.
Gaines v. Canada, ruling that Oklahoma could not bar an African American student
from its all-white law school on the ground that she had not requested the state
to provide a separate law school for black students.
1950s
1950: McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents ruled against practices of segregation
within a formerly all-white graduate school insofar as they interfered with
meaningful classroom instruction and interaction with other students.
1950: Sweatt v. Painter ruled against a Texas attempt to circumvent Missouri ex
rel. Gaines v. Canada with a hastily-established inferior law school for black
students.
1953: Barrows v. Jackson reaffirmed Shelley v. Kraemer, preventing state courts
from enforcing restrictive covenants.
1954: Brown v. Board of Education explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation
of public education facilities.
1956: Gayle v. Browder overturns segregation of city buses; see also Montgomery
Bus Boycott.
1957: Fikes v. Alabama was a further ruling against forced confessions.
1958: Cooper v. Aaron barred Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus from interfering
with the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School; see also Little
Rock Nine.
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