Thurgood Marshall

Warren today began reading the Supreme Court’s decision in the public school desegregation cases. The court’s ruling could not be determined immediately.” The alarmwent off in every newsroom in America. The nation waited. Instead of delivering a

crisp summary of the decision, however, Warren embarked on a long, discursive text. He referred to the evidence of psychologists, sociologists, and educators on the effects of segregationonblack students. He discussed Plessy v. Ferguson and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee; thus far, he said, no precedent existed for the applica- tion of that guarantee to school segregation. After citing a number of earlier cases and outlining the history of black education in America, Warren called education “the most important function of state and local governments.” An hour after he started, the chief justice had yet to reveal the court’s ruling. Warren, wired the AP correspondent at 1:12, “had not read far enough in the court’s opinion for newsmen to say that segregation was being struck down as unconstitu- tional.” Finally, at 1:20 p . m . , Warren reached the crucial question: “Does segregation John W. Davis was an American diplomat and lawyer who had been the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 1924. By the 1950s he was America’s foremost constitutional lawyer, and had argued more than a hundred cases successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court.

C H A P T E R 1 : E q U A L J U S T I C E U N D E R L Aw

1 5