From Jim Crow to Brown.

America in the 1950s was not nearly the "land of opportunity" for blacks that it was for their white fellow citizens. Throughout the decade "Jim Crow" laws around the country — but especially in the South — forbade almost all interaction between black and white Americans. Beginning with the Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas Supreme Court decision in 1954, the country took a series of important early steps toward racial equality during the decade. But change was slow in coming.

Poor Education.

Although the Brown decision guaranteed black students the legal right to the same education in the same schools as white students, many schools resisted integration until well into the 1960s. Consequently few black students received a quality education. Their schools were poorly funded and understaffed compared to those attended by white students...