In the "Southern Manifesto," the Southern officials who contributed to the document's message claim that Chief Justice Earl Warren's decision in the Brown v. Board of Education was unconstitutional on many grounds. Firstly, the authors state that the Supreme Court's decision is "a clear abuse of judicial power" as the court exercises dangerously "unlimited power" over Southern states as an outside force, unjustly disintegrating "the established law of the land"(www.americanradioworks.publicradio.org, par. 2, 3, and 11). As the Southern leaders attempt to present a deductive argument, they also claim that the "very Congress which proposed the [14th Amendment] subsequently provided for segregated schools in the District of Columbia," therefore
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In both instances, Southern Americans worked to undo the steps the government made toward racial equality. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Southerners wrote the "Southern Manifesto." Similarly, after the Union Army won the Civil War in 1865 and ushered in the Reconstruction period (1865-1877), "new southern state legislatures passed restrictive 'black codes' to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans," thus diminishing much of African Americans' newfound freedom after the war (www.history.com, par. 1). In addition, the Southern populace of the late 1800s mirrored the prejudicial behaviors and attitudes of the Southern people of the 1950s during the "Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867"(www.history.com, par. 1). During this era, "blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history" and won "election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress"(www.history.com, par. 1). However, white Southerners soon "reverse[d] the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South," as evidenced by the creation of the Ku Klux Klan during this time (www.history.com, par. 1). Hence, the actions of Southern Congressmen during the 1950s provoked by the Brown v. Board of Education case replicated the efforts made by Southern states during the late nineteenth century to unravel the nation's progress toward full racial equality, as both aimed to maintain the long-held barriers between different races in the U.S., particularly those separating white and black
In both instances, Southern Americans worked to undo the steps the government made toward racial equality. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Southerners wrote the "Southern Manifesto." Similarly, after the Union Army won the Civil War in 1865 and ushered in the Reconstruction period (1865-1877), "new southern state legislatures passed restrictive 'black codes' to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans," thus diminishing much of African Americans' newfound freedom after the war (www.history.com, par. 1). In addition, the Southern populace of the late 1800s mirrored the prejudicial behaviors and attitudes of the Southern people of the 1950s during the "Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867"(www.history.com, par. 1). During this era, "blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history" and won "election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress"(www.history.com, par. 1). However, white Southerners soon "reverse[d] the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South," as evidenced by the creation of the Ku Klux Klan during this time (www.history.com, par. 1). Hence, the actions of Southern Congressmen during the 1950s provoked by the Brown v. Board of Education case replicated the efforts made by Southern states during the late nineteenth century to unravel the nation's progress toward full racial equality, as both aimed to maintain the long-held barriers between different races in the U.S., particularly those separating white and black