Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation

Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation (Landmark Law Cases and American Society)
- Used Book in Good Condition
Americans were riveted to their television sets in 1957, when a violent mob barred black students from entering Little Rock's Central High School and faced off against paratroopers sent by a reluctant President Eisenhower. That set off a firestorm of protest throughout the nation and ultimately led to the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Cooper v. Aaron, reaffirming Brown v. Board of Education's mandate for school integration "with all deliberate speed" and underscoring the supremacy of federal and constitutional authority over state law.

Noted scholar Tony Freyer, arguably our nation's top authority on this subject, now provides a concise, lucid, and eminently teachable summary of that historic case and shows that it paved the way for later civil rights victories. He chronicles how the Little Rock school board sought court approval to table integration efforts and how the black community brought suit against the board's watered-down version of compliance. The board's request was denied by a federal appeals court and taken to the Supreme Court, where the unanimous ruling in Cooper reaffirmed federal law-but left in place the maddening ambiguities of "all deliberate speed."

While other accounts have focused on the showdown on the schoolhouse steps, Freyer takes readers into the courts to reveal the centrality of black citizens' efforts to the origins and outcome of the crisis. He describes the work of the Little Rock NAACP with its Legal Defense Fund led by Thurgood Marshall and Wiley Branton in defining the issues and abandoning gradualism in favor of direct confrontation with the segregationist South. He also includes the previously untold account of Justice William Brennan's surprising influence upon Justice Felix Frankfurter's controversial concurring opinion, which preserved his own "deliberate speed" wording from Brown.

With Cooper, the "well morticed high wall" of segregation had finally cracked. As the most important test of Brown, which literally contained the means to thwart its own intent, it presaged the civil rights movement's broader nonviolent mass action combining community mobilization and litigation to finally defeat Jim Crow. It was not only a landmark decision, but also a turning point in America's civil rights struggle.
Country USA
Brand University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer University Press of Kansas
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Refer to Sapnet.
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780700615360
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University Press of Kansas
Manufacturer	University Press of Kansas
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Refer to Sapnet.
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780700615360
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Little Rock on Trial: Cooper v. Aaron and School Desegregation (Landmark Law Cases and American Society)

You might also like...