Leading by Example, Part 2

Another goal of the ACMHR was school desegregation. ACMHR members such as barber James Armstrong filed lawsuits to place their children in better-funded all-White schools after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas outlawed separate but equal public schools. Alabama, like other Southern states, vowed massive resistance to the high court's decision and created pupil placement laws that allowed school officials to avoid integrating public schools. Frustrated by Birmingham city school officials' tactics to prevent integration, Rev. Shuttlesworth and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their children at all-White Phillips High School in September 1957. As he got out of the car, a group of about 20 White men attacked Rev. Shuttlesworth with bicycle chains, brass knuckles, and fists, while a few police officers and news reporters were nearby. His wife was stabbed in the hip as she went to help him, and his daughter's ankle was slammed in the car door. The ACMHR later filed legal charges against the Board of Education.

Birmingham, Alabama · United States