Specifically, Brown v. BOE resulted from the case brought up by a man named Oliver Brown, whose daughter “….was forced to walk across dangerous railroad tracks each morning rather than being allowed to attend a nearby school restricted to whites” (Give Me Liberty! 953). Thurgood Marshall, a leader from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), supported the plaintiffs in the federal case, arguing that segregation was damaging to black children. While the Eisenhower Administration did not explicitly support either side, it did ask the Supreme Court justices to view both racial segregation and discrimination as a problem, especially considering the United States’ position and ideals in the Cold War. On May 17, 1954, Justice Earl Warren presented the Court’s decision, which outlawed segregation in public education, stating “In the field of education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (Give Me Liberty! 954). While the decision was celebrated by African Americans throughout the country, the decision possessed no immediate and widespread change, for it only addressed segregation in public schools and did not confront all other types of racial discrimination. In addition to this, the decision did not call for immediate desegregation, but instead “…called for hearing as to …show more content…
It gets its name from Senator Joseph R. McCarthy from Wisconsin, who, in February 1950, claimed that communists had infiltrated the American government. He shocked the State Department when he announced “…that he had a list of 205 communists” (Give Me Liberty! 909) who worked in the department, but the number later dropped to fifty-seven individuals. The only evidence to support his claims of enemy invasion were the name of the fifty-seven individuals who he believed “… [appeared] to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party” (Voices of Freedom 236). Using the Red Scare as a stepping stone to promote his image, McCarthy, as a chair of the Senate subcommittee, continued his rampage held “…hearings and [leveled] wild charges against numerous individuals as well as…government agencies” (Give Me Liberty! 909). Despite his growing frenzy, McCarthy possessed no concrete evidence of any kind, and never “…identified a single person guilty of genuine disloyalty” (Give Me Liberty! 909), which shows that the whole fiasco was just speculation and accusation. However, this mindset and process of accusation without concrete evidence was not uncommon during the Cold War, as seen with President Truman’s loyalty review system and the House of Un-American Activities Committee’s trials in Hollywood,