Subtopic: Containment and Consensus: 1945-1960

African American Daily Conditions
These photos depict typical daily activities of African Americans before the Civil Rights era.

The Civil Rights Movement in America, 1945-1975
This interactive timeline provides a chronological and geographic view of the events of the Civil Rights era and its aftermath.

Documenting Brown 2: Plessy v. Ferguson
The Supreme Court's 1896 ruling legalized the "separate but equal" doctrine that sanctioned segregation.

Documenting Brown 4: Mendez v. Westminster
This 1946 federal court ruling marked a victory for Mexican Americans and chipped away at the "separate but equal" doctrine, declaring segregated schools based on national origin unconstitutional.

Documenting Brown 6: Brown v. Board of Education, 1955
The Supreme Court's opinion in Brown II reflects the struggle between federal and state governments on how and when school desegregation would occur.

Documenting Brown: Collected Excerpts
This collection of excerpts from legislation and court decisions documents key phases of the legal struggle to gain and implement equal education.

Brown Reactions: Editorials
This sampling of newspaper editorials from the mid-1950s reflects the range of public opinion and responses to the Brown decision.

Mendez v. Westminster: Desegregating California's Schools
Sylvia Mendez recalls the conditions that led Mexican Americans to sue for desegregation in the 1940s in this segment from Mendez vs. Westminster: Para Todos los Niños/For All the Children, from KOCE-TV.

Jane Jacobs
Learn about Jane Jacobs, an activist who worked to save the neighborhoods of New York City in this video segment from New York Voices.

Melba Pattillo Beals
Melba Patillo Beals was one of nine black students who desegregated Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, Beals describes her tumultuous experience.

Moving to Oak Park
This video segment, adapted from NOVA, shows the racial violence sparked when the African American chemist Percy Julian and his family moved into an exclusive Chicago suburb in 1950.

Re-Examining Brown
This lesson explores the historical complexity of the struggle to desegregate schools, the geographic scope of racism, conditions that prompted activism and litigation, and how laws have changed over time.

The Road to Brown
This video segment looks at history of the NAACP's efforts to convince the Supreme Court that segregated schools were unconstitutional, leading up to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education cases.

Segregated Schooling in South Carolina
In this video segment, produced for the Levine Museum of the New South, Joseph De Laine Jr. and Ophelia De Laine Gona describe conditions in segregated South Carolina schools.

Sheyann Webb
Sheyann Webb was eight years old in 1965 when she marched for voting rights. In this interview, recorded for Eyes on the Prize, she recalls the events of the Selma march.

Simple Justice 2: Social Science Evidence
This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" documents Dr. Kenneth Clark's "doll test," which became important social science evidence in the Brown case.

Simple Justice 4: Arguing the Fourteenth Amendment
This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" explores the issue at the heart of Brown v. Board of Education: whether the Fourteenth Amendment applied to segregated schools.

Simple Justice 6: Justice Warren Reads the Decision
This segment from American Experience: "Simple Justice" explores the dynamics and arguments among the Supreme Court justices who ruled in Brown v. Board of Education.

Voter Registration Training Tool
Students at Miles College in Birmingham developed this "crib sheet" and questionnaire to help black citizens become registered voters and to document racial discrimination in the voting process in the 1950s.