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A plaintiff named Oliver Brown files a class-action suit against the Board of Education today (1951) in Topeka, Kansas, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools.

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Oliver Brown claims that the black schools are not

equal to white schools. He claims it violated the “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment, which says no state can “deny to any person its jurisdiction”

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Today, May 17, 1954, Warren (Chief Justice) wrote that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” as segregated schools are “inherently unequal.”

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Today, the Court has ruled that the plaintiffs were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.” The Supreme Court has not specifically said how exactly schools should be integrated.

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The Court’s actions have now effectively opened the door to local judicial and political evasion of desegregation. While Kansas and some other states are going along, many school and local officials in the South are defying it!

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Today, March 7, 1965, when peaceful participants in a Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights were met by Alabama state troopers who attacked them with nightsticks, tear gas and whips after they refused to turn back.

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President Takes A Stand Against Racist Voting

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President Takes A Stand Against Racist Voting

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In the wake of the shocking incident, Johnson called for comprehensive voting rights legislation. In a speech today, March 15, 1965, the president showed ways in which election officials deny Black citizens the right to vote.

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Black people attempting to vote are being told they got the date, time or polling place wrong, that they possessed insufficient literacy skills or that they had filled out an application incorrectly.

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The voting rights bill was passed a couple months ago in the U.S Senate by a 77-19 vote on May 26, 1965. After debate, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 333-85 today, July 9.

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The Voting Rights Act has given Black American voters a way to challenge voting restrictions and improved voter turnout. In Mississippi, voter turnout among Black people has increased from 6% in 1964 to 59% this year (1969).

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Women make up a quarter of the American workforce in this 20th century, but they are traditionally paid far less than men, even in cases where they perform the same job. It’s time we stop this, ladies!

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Efforts to fix the wage gap have gone up during this new war, when women have entered factory jobs in place of men who had enlisted in the military. This year the National War Labor Board endorsed policies to provide equal pay

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Congress has now introduced the Women’s Equal Pay Act, which might make it illegal to pay women less than men for work of “comparable quality and quantity.” Sadly, today (1945) the act has failed to pass.

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Calls for a federal equal pay law coalesced early this year (1961) during the administration of President John F. Kennedy. Esther Peterson, head of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor, is a supporter of the legislation.

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Despite the opposition of powerful business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Retail Merchants Association, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act this year (1963) as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.