The Southern Manifesto (1956)

Linda Brown and her new class mates after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

Sen. Strom Thurmond prepared first draft of Southern Manifesto repudiating the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation decision. February 1956.

Source: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marsha ll/manifesto.htmlCourtesy: Strom Thurmond Institute

The Southern Manifesto In 1956, 96 congressmen from the former Confederate States wrote the Southern Manifesto to voice their opposition to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling

Brown v. Board of Education

. It was signed by 77 members of the House of Representatives and 19 Senators, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Main Points

The Southern Manifesto

1. The Supreme Court’s decision in Education Brown v. Board of is a clear abuse of judicial power. We regard the decision of the Supreme Court in the schools cases as a clear abuse of the judicial power. It climaxes a trend in the Federal judiciary undertaking to legislate, in derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.

Main Points Continued…

The Southern Manifesto

2. The doctrine of separate but equal is an established legal principle, almost a century old, and the Supreme Court has no legal bases to overturn it.

The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the systems of education maintained by the States.

•The very Congress which proposed the [14th] amendment provided for segregated schools in the District of Columbia.

•In 1868, 26 out of the 37 states approved of segregated schools •The doctrine of separate but equal schools originated in the North in the 1849 case of Roberts v City of Boston.

•In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court declared that separate but equal facilities did not violate a citizen's right under the 14th amendment.

Main Points Continued…

The Southern Manifesto

3. The Supreme Court’s unwarranted decision in Education and blacks.

Brown v. Board of is creating chaos and hurting relations between whites This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relation between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.

4. Outside agitators threaten to destroy the system of public education in much of the South.

Without regard to the consent of the governed, outside agitators are threatening immediate and revolutionary changes in our public-school systems. If done, this is certain to destroy the system of public education in some of the States.

Thurgood Marshall with James Nabrit Jr. and George E.C. Hayes after their victory in the Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court, May 17, 1954.

Main Points Continued…

The Southern Manifesto

5. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education violates States’ rights and is unconstitutional.

We decry the Supreme Court’s encroachments on rights reserved to the States and to the people, contrary to established law and to the Constitution.

Linda Brown

Main Points Continued…

The Southern Manifesto

6. We Southerners will refrain from lawless acts, even as we confront the wrongs of the Supreme Court and provocations by outside agitators.

In this trying period, as we all seek to right this wrong, we appeal to our people not to be provoked by the agitators and troublemakers invading our States and to scrupulously refrain from disorders and lawless acts.

September 4, 1957: In Little Rock, Ark., shouts of approval greeted Paul Davis Taylor as he waved a Confederate flag at Central High School. September 5, 1957: A jeering Student follows Elizabeth Echford as she tries to enter Central High School.