The
Brown V. Board of Education Case
The Integrationist's Arguments
The attorneys of the NAACP argued many things, like the fact that the Supreme Court had misinterpreted the Fourteenth amendment, specifically the Equal Protection clause. They argued that racial segregation would not be permitted in the Equal Protection Clause. Another argument was that the Fourteenth Amendment permitted the government to ban any action that was discriminatory based on race, and that included segregation in public schools. Also, it was never clearly stated in the Fourteenth Amendment whether states would be permitted to create segregated education. The final argument were tests done by psychologists that showed the detrimental effects segregation had on the minds of young black children. Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney said in this trial that, “The Negro child is made to go to an inferior school; he is branded in his own mind as inferior...You can teach such a child the Constitution, anthropology and citizenship, but he knows it isn’t true.”
Dr. Kenneth Clark's Doll Test
Photo of Dr. Clark conducting the Doll Test
Dr. Kenneth Clark and his wife Mamie Phipps Clark, both were psychologists that created a test to study the mental effects segregation has on black children. A paper was written after the study and was published. The paper, written by Kenneth Clark, got the attention of NAACP's Robert Carter. Carter believed the Clarks' findings could be used in court to demonstrate the damaged psychological development segregation forces black children to endure. Clark was asked to testify in the Briggs, and Davis cases and to give his expert social science testimony. A summation of his social science testimony that was given during the trials was coauthored by Clark himself. The Summation was also endorsed by 35 social scientists. The Supreme Court SPECIFICALLY referenced Clark's paper in the Brown Case Decision.
Photot of the testing documents in the Doll Test
In the test, Dr. Clark and his wife displayed four identical, plastic baby doll toys that only differed in skin color to young black children in between the ages of three to seven. They asked the young children questions that would help them figure out the children's impression and inclination regarding race. To begin with, the children were asked if they could identify the races of the dolls, which nearly all the children did correctly. The children then were asked which doll they liked better. One would expect that the children would choose the black dolls because that's the one that looks like them, but it was a different story. Most of the children chose the white doll and said good things about the white doll, rather than the black doll. Another extension of the test included drawings of a boy and a girl. The children were asked to color the pictures the same color they were, but many of the children with darker skin colors colored the images with white or yellow crayons, rather than darker colors. The conclusion was that the hate, discrimination and inequality constantly surrounding black children, caused a sense of self hatred and a sense of feeling lesser than someone else to develop already in these young kids.