Waltrina D. Kirkland-Mullins
For this portion of the unit, each week, students will examine one of the three previously noted court cases. In multiple instances, the same focus questions will be applied.
Week 3 - Plessy v. Ferguson Duration: 3 Days/ 50-minute sessions (to be extended, if required)
Focus Questions: Have all Americans always been afforded equal rights and protection under the law?
Were government laws used to sanction racial segregation?
What do the terms "For Colored Only" and Jim Crow" signify?
Day 1. Before studying this case, provide a general overview of the way things once were in America. Emphasize that the enslavement of Black people for free labor and economic gain existed in America not too long ago (approximately 400 years). With the institution of slavery came the misconceived notion that people of African descent were inferior. That mindset was embraced by many Anglo-Americans after the abolition of slavery. In time, Jim Crow laws were embraced within many states across the U.S., particularly in the south. Louisiana, a state densely populated by people of "mixed ancestry," was one of many southern states that approved of race segregation.
Day 2 - The Case. On June 7, 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy was incarcerated for sitting in the "White Car" of the East Louisiana Railroad. Homer was an African-American male whose complexion was so fair, he could pass as being Caucasian. Louisiana law held that if you were Black or a person of mixed ancestry, being of a light complexion proved irrelevant: you were considered "colored," and as such were required to sit in the "Colored Car." Plessy was a Louisianan resident; he traced his ancestry to French, Spanish, and Caribbean settlers. Additionally a social activist, Homer Plessy was an avid supporter of the Citizen's Committee—an organization that was against the Louisiana Railroad discriminatory practices. Homer decided to take a stand: he intentionally sat in the White section of the railroad car to counter Louisiana's Colored Car Act. He was subsequently arrested.
Plessy's case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Plessy's attorney argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendment.
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Despite this assertion, the Court upheld the idea that separate but equal was constitutionally sound under the 14
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Amendment. Plessy v. Ferguson served as a springboard to sanction Jim Crow practices embraced in various states throughout the U.S.
Related Activity: Have students evaluate, compare, and contrast the facts within this case based on the plaintiff's and defendant's perspectives. Then, pose the question: "Do you agree with the court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson? Use evidence from the case to support your opinion. Have students record their viewpoints in written response journals. Subsequently have them come to group to share their journal inserts and viewpoints among peers.
Week 4 - Mendez et al v. Westminster - 3 Days/ 50-minute sessions (to be extended, if required)
Focus Questions: Were Jim Crow laws limited to the American South?
Did segregation practices solely impact African-American communities?
Did Plessy v. Ferguson impact the decision in the Mendez case? Why or why not?
Day 1 – Inform students that they will take on the role of detective. Their task is to observe pictures of an anonymous family, their community of residence and neighborhood school, and the school district in which the family's children were forced to attend. Projecting the photographic images on the ENO board, have students to compare and contrast the images. Call on students to share their observations, and urge them to provide explicit details. Students will eagerly raise their hands to share: they will immediately identify differences in the physical attributes of the residential neighborhoods and surrounding districts, the recreational facilities contained therein, and the racial composition of student populations and community residents.
Subsequently share that the photos were taken in California in the Westminster school district around 1946. Add that during the early to mid-1900s throughout California and the American southwest, most Mexican Americans resided in segregated, agrarian communities. Schools within those areas were typically overcrowded and contained in dilapidated edifices. Textbooks and other school resources available in Mexican schools were inadequate as compared to those afforded in neighboring Anglo communities. Career-oriented, college preparatory subjects like Math and Science were taught in Euro-American schools. Schools that accommodated Mexican-American children delivered instruction that prepared them for entry into the industrial or domestic labor workforce. Mendez was the first court ruling to address these inequities in education as they pertained to people of color—particularly those of Mexican or Latino/Hispanic descent. The Westminster School District cited Plessy v. Ferguson in support of their stance regarding segregated schools.
Related Activities: Show film interview of Sylvia Mendez, one of three siblings in her family to experience firsthand the school desegregation process (http://www.youtube .com/watch?v=eMoAXggpj_0&list=PL4A943C2012189F26&index=2).
Ask your students to put themselves in the shoes of a Mexican-American child residing in the Westminster residential community. If given a choice, would you have wanted to attend the Anglo or Mexican school? Have students make use of info gathered from previously viewed photos and Sylvia Mendez' interview to support their viewpoints. Have students record their points of view in their writing response journals. Create an illustration to accompany the written opinion. Call on students to share their opinion and pictorial depiction with the class.
Day 2 - The Case. In 1946, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of approximately 5,000 Mexican American students in Orange County, California. That lawsuit marked the first challenge against school segregation in America.
The lawsuit involved Señor Gonzalo Mendez, a migrant farmer born in Mexico in 1913. Six years after his birth, his mother and four other siblings moved to Westminster, California. As a child, young Gonzalo attended the Westminster Main School along with other Mexican-American and Euro-American children. During that time, California state law classified Mexicans as being white; being Mexican did not impact one's ability to attend an Anglo-American school.
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By 1943, Gonzalo became a naturalized American citizen. He married Felicitas, a woman of Puerto Rican ancestry. Together they raised a family. The Mendezes were diligent workers; in time, they were able to lease a 40-acre asparagus ranch in the town of Westminster, California. Gonzalo, his wife, and children had achieved the American dream: they made a good living, were fluent in English, and were model citizens. The Mendezes, along with another Mexican-American and Japanese-American family, were the only non-whites who resided in their Westminster community.
In 1945, Mr. Gonzalez and his wife proceeded to enroll their three children in their neighborhood public school. The Mendezes, however, met with disappointment, for they were told their children must attend Hoover, a neighboring elementary school for Mexican Americans. Not one to concede, Gonzalo met with the school principal and the school's board members, but to no avail. According to the Westminster School District and the Orange County School Board, the decision was final: the Mendez' children would attend Hoover.
Gonzalo Mendez went on to work closely with Los Angeles Civil Rights Attorney David Marcus. Marcus helped Gonzalo discover that segregation practices were not limited to Mendez' immediate Westminster community, but was prevalent throughout other school districts within Orange County. Those school districts additionally included Santa Ana, Garden Grove, and El Modena today referred to as the Eastern Orange school district. As a result, Attorney Marcus filed a class action representing Mendez and approximately 5,000 other Mexican and Latino Americans. He sought an injunction—a court order by which an individual is required to perform or restrain from performing a particular act—for the schools to desegregate. The suit was assigned to the United States District Court of the Southern District of California, Central Division, presided by Judge Paul McCormick. The defendants were the four school districts, their superintendents, and their school boards.
The defendants argued that "the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson gave legal sanction to racial segregation, provided the separate facilities for different races were equal."
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They too emphasized that there "were sound educational and social advantages to segregated schooling for Mexicans, that Mexican schools gave special instruction to students who didn't speak English and who were unfamiliar with American values and customs. According to the defendants, such programs were beneficial to both Mexicans and Anglos.
The plaintiff's attorney countered that notion. He argued that the Mendez children were fluent in English, and that they had been assigned to attend schools "reserved for and attended exclusively by children of Mexican and Latin descent, while other schools in the same system were "reserved exclusively for children considered Anglo-Saxon."
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Additionally, no state law mandated the segregation of Mexican people, thus, segregating children of Mexican ancestry was a violation of equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment.
Note: Mendez' attorney did not argue that the school districts were not integrated on the basis of race: instead, he noted that "racial" segregation was a moot point because according to California law, Mexicans were deemed Caucasian.
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The plaintiff's attorney realized he had no argument regarding racial segregation being unconstitutional because the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld racial segregation. Nevertheless, Attorney Marcus continued the legal battle.
The Mendez case was assigned to U.S. District Court under Judge Paul McCormick of the Southern District of California, Central Division. By April, 1947, Judge McCormick's decision was upheld. It was determined that "a paramount requisite in the American system of public education is social equality. It must be open to all children by unified school association regardless of lineage."
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Judge McCormick's opinion heralded that separate but equal was in fact inequitable and unjust in the eyes of the law. By April 1947, it was decided that Mexican American children could not be segregated because of California state policy. This was a triumphant victory for the Mendez. Although the ruling was limited to the state of California, it laid a foundation for future school desegregation cases.
Related Activities: Have students view Audio-Visual Resources regarding interviews with Sylvia Mendez (e.g., PBS on-line interview resource accessible via http://www.pbslearningmedia.or/resource/0Si04.soc). Encourage students to listen closely as Señora Mendez recounts her experiences. Also ask that they listen intently too to additional speakers, and take notes as the film footage runs through the end. Subsequently introduce a follow-up question: "Was Sylvia Mendez' and her family's civil rights activism worth the effort? Did the 1947 enactment of Mendez v. Westminster make a difference for all diverse communities in California? Use detailed info from the presented film clips to support your responses. Have children exchange viewpoints with one another. Inform them that this type of questioning will be revisited again.
Contact Sylvia! Attempt to communicate with Sylvia Mendez via sylviafmendez@yahoo.com or facebook.com/syvia.mendez.0607. If possible, have your school conduct a fundraiser to host a "Meet & Greet Sylvia" interview session at your school. If costs make this impossible, when writing Ms. Mendez, request that she conduct an on-line Q&A or SKYPE session with your school or class. Perhaps your request will be fulfilled.
Week 5 - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas - 3 Days/50-minute session:
Day 1. When introducing this lawsuit, highlight that it was actually comprised of five separate cases. The collective lawsuit included Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, Briggs v. Elliot (SC), Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (VA), Boiling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel. Make note that each of the cases slightly differed, however, despite those differences, each had a common thread: the major focus of concern was the constitutionality of state-sponsored segregation. Each case greatly impacted African American minors who wanted to obtain admission to public schools on an integrated basis.
The Case. In 1951, an African-American man by the name of Oliver Brown and 12 other parents filed a lawsuit against the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education. The Topeka BOE did not allow their children to attend a white school that was located within their neighborhoods. The schools Black children were forced to attend were located far distances away from their communities. The parents contended that these schools were not only out of the way, but were inferior to white educational facilities.
The case was heard before the Supreme Court. Initially, the courts relied on Plessy v. Ferguson, ruling in favor of the Board of Education. Brown et al appealed the ruling in the United States Supreme Court on October 1, 1951. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund handled these cases. Attorney Marshall personally argued the case before the court. He emphasized that the most common issue impacting the consolidated cases was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and that this reality violated the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Referring to Mendez, he also argued that segregated school systems had a tendency to foster a sense of inferiority as it related to white children. Because of this, such a system should not legally be permitted to exist.
A Reinforcing Reality. Attorney Marshall's argument regarding segregated schools having a tendency to foster a sense of inferiority is substantiated in Sylvia Mendez recount of her experience. According to Sylvia Mendez, before, during, and after the trial, Mexican people were bombarded with derogatory name calling. She recollected that when her parents attempted to enroll her into their neighborhood school, Caucasian school officials shared that half-Mexican, fair-skinned students with French surname could register as white; darker-hued students with Mexican surnames would not be admitted. She initial felt hurt, uncomfortable, and disillusioned upon attending the desegregated school.
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Impressive, however, were the persevering spirit of her parents and the solidarity of Hispanic/Latino community in their struggle for equal opportunities in education. Although not all community members agreed with or participated in the front-line struggles, the solidarity among members within the community seemed to foster enduring strength and collaborative effort on behalf of their cause. By September 1947, Mexican American children were able to attend integrated schools throughout Orange County. The collective effort of Mendez et al helped to accentuate discrimination practices against non-whites throughout the U.S, serving as a motivational force and foundation for Brown.
Related Activities: Individually or in small groups of 3 or 4, have students evaluate similarities and differences found between Mendez and Brown. Using a Venn diagram, encourage students to compare and contrast viewpoints provided by the plaintiff and defense attorneys for each case. Ask: Did the issue of race affect both cases? Did language and ethnicity affect both cases? Explain. Have students convey their opinions through classroom discourse and in written form.
Using an oversized, retractable classroom map of the United States or individually Xeroxed map handouts, have students highlight all cities and states represented in each of the three studied court cases. Students can continue to fill in the map as they learn of additional desegregation battles in America. Use easy-to-remove adhesive stars to highlight key locations on the retractable map. Have students use crayons or colored pencils to highlight cities and states on map handouts. Students will geographically discover that although Jim Crow practices weighed heavily in the U.S. below the Mason-Dixon Line, they were not exclusive to the south.
