This week (May 17) in 1954 America recovered some of her promise when the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous opinion in Brown vs. the Board of Education.  In its wake, the legally sanctioned principle of “separate but equal” treatment of whites and blacks became a thing of the past.

The ruling that had sanctioned “separate but equal” treatment was Plessy vs. Ferguson, which held that segregating the races was not discriminatory provided each race had access to “equal” facilities.  Legally, the ruling was specious.  Practically, it was a joke, especially in the South where white schools were equipped with modern teaching tools, while “equal” black schools were lucky to have blackboards and chalk.

In Topeka, Kansas, this disparity was not lost on Oliver Brown, whose daughter Linda was forced to pass by a spiffy whites-only school to attend a run-down black school farther away.  Nor was it lost on Thurgood Marshall, the black head lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  Marshall had been looking for a test case to overturn Plessy, in particular a case in a border state where racism was less ingrained than in the Deep South.  Smartly, Marshall attacked segregation at its edges and then used those victories as stepping-stones toward his ultimate goal of abolishing it nationwide.  Thus when Brown sued the Kansas school system, Marshall took his case, intending to bring it to the Supreme Court.

When it got there, recently appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren quickly saw Brown as a way to end this “separate but equal” segregation charade, but he felt that on an issue this divisive only a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court would have the legal and moral force to compel acquiescence, if not total acceptance.

That would be no small feat, because his fellow justices included several monumental egotists, one skeptical Southerner, a “go-it-alone” maverick and a die-hard segregationist. It took Warren’s considerable negotiating skills to do it, but he finally got everyone to agree that Linda Brown’s 14^th Amendment rights to equal treatment were being violated.

Warren read the court’s unanimous decision from the bench, with this ending: “We conclude that … the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.  Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

The decision stunned the nation, and although it was only the beginning of the journey toward a new integrated America, it definitely marked the end of the old era in which segregation based on race, creed or color was sanctioned by law.

In that sense, although it wasn’t a “trial” per se, one could argue that for African-Americans, Brown vs. the Board of Education was the “Trial of the Century.”

In 1963, Eugene “Bull” Connor was the public safety commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama.   Bull Connor was also the stereotypical red-faced, bull-necked, racist lawman who believed all blacks were genetically inferior.  And Bull Connor was also, ironically, one of the best things that ever happened to the Civil Rights movement, which visited Birmingham in April of 1963.

Martin Luther King, his followers, and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had come to Birmingham to stage protest marches, boycotts and sit-ins in hopes of forcing the city to end its discriminatory policies with respect to voting rights, jobs and equal access to public facilities.  King had purposely targeted Birmingham because it was a city wholly committed to institutional segregation, and a city with no qualms about using violence to maintain it.  Indeed, repeated bombings of black churches, homes and businesses earned it the nickname “Bombingham.”

Another goal of the protest was to generate nationwide media coverage, both to prod a very reluctant President John Kennedy (who was afraid to anger his political base, southern Democrats) into becoming more active in promoting equality for blacks, and to prod Congress to pass meaningful Civil Rights legislation.

Unfortunately, the initial stages of the protest were a total failure, at least in terms of generating media coverage.  Also, as more protestors were jailed, the SCLC began running out of funds to bail them out.  Thus many would-be protestors feared that long jail terms might cause them to be fired from their jobs, and partly as a result the ranks of volunteers quickly thinned.

And so this week (May 2) King and his advisors initiated a desperate strategy.  They unleashed on the city a protest march of thousands of school children — it became known as the “Children’s Miracle March” — 600 of whom were in jail by day’s end.

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One fitting chapter in the story of the Civil Rights movement is the story of the first famous African American whose magnificent voice was heard by thousands gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  The Reverend Martin Luther King’s fine baritone was the second such voice, but his predecessor’s was a contralto so divine that the great conductor Arturo Toscanini called it “a voice that comes once in a hundred years.”

That voice, Marian Anderson’s, sang in Lincoln’s shadow this week (April 9) in 1939, and — like King — millions of others heard her via radio, which broadcast her concert around the country.

Anderson’s concert was history-making in one other way, for it should have been given two months earlier. That is when Washington’s most prominent black institution of higher learning, Howard University, attempted to rent out DAR Constitution Hall in downtown D.C. as a showcase for Anderson’s talents.  Only a hall with magnificent acoustics would do for a voice such as Anderson’s, and at that time Constitution Hall was such a place.

Alas, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), which owned Constitution Hall, discriminated against black artists and would not permit it. Even though Anderson had already performed at Carnegie Hall, the White House, and in prominent concert halls throughout Europe, Howard U. would have to look elsewhere.

DAR’s decision did not sit well with many prominent Americans, none more so than one of DAR’s own board members, Eleanor Roosevelt, who at the time was also serving her second term as America’s First Lady.  As a result, Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from DAR, as did several other members, causing the organization much embarrassment.

But the Daughters stuck to their guns, so Mrs. Roosevelt used her influence to arrange for Ms. Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday.  Critics raved about her performance, which, thanks to DAR’s discriminatory policies, was heard by millions more than it otherwise would have been.

In the wake of her Lincoln Memorial concert Anderson went on to even greater fame, singing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York (where Toscanini conducted her), and performing at several presidential inaugurals. She also used her renown to promote many social causes, including Civil Rights, for which she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Congressional Gold Medal and, fittingly, the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award.

Oh, and even with her busy schedule, a few years later Anderson still found time to accept an invitation to perform at an event to raise money for the millions of starving people in China. The venue was DAR Constitution Hall.  The event sponsor was a somewhat chagrined, but more enlightened, Daughters of the American Revolution.