September
11, 1950
“Bolling
v. Sharpe”, Segregation Unconstitutional
Beginning in late 1949, a
group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC, calling them the Consolidated
Parents Group, petitioned the Board of Education of the District of Columbia to
open the nearly completed John Phillip Sousa Junior High as an integrated
school. The school board denied the petition and the school opened, admitting
only whites. On September 11, 1950, Gardner Bishop, Nicholas Stabile and
the Consolidated Parents Group attempted to get eleven African-American
students (including the case's plaintiff, Spottswood Bolling) admitted to the
school, but were refused entry by the school's principal.
The
argument in Bolling rested on the unconstitutionality of segregation was unanimously decided on May 17,
1954, where the much more famous Brown v. Board of Education (decided on the
same day) argued that the idea of 'separate but equal' facilities sanctioned by
Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896) was a fallacy as the facilities for
black students were woefully inadequate.
The
court, led by newly confirmed Chief Justice Earl Warren decided unanimously in
favor of the plaintiffs. The
Court concluded: "racial segregation in the public schools of the District
of Columbia is a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the 5th
Amendment".
Born in 1950?
Then
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