Arkansas State press. [volume] (Little Rock, Ark.) 1941-1959, 1958-11-07

Court Brushing aside the law vicious and vile assertions
let consider the soealed respectable" argument that
the Supreme Court in its 1854 public school ruling has
usurped the function of the legislature and has made
law from the bench
The segregationists are wang that they have abid-
ed by the 1896 decision in Plessy Ferguson the sep
arae but equal opinion They have said they consider
the Pessy ruling be the Constitution and the law of
the land They complain that Brown Board of Educa-
ton reversed Pessy that it is not constitutional is not
the law of the land, but is "judge-made" law.
Well, if accept their view for moment, what
the Pessy decision? 1t ruling by the Supreme
Court that law in Louisiana requiring the separa
ton of the railroad not violation of
the Fourteenth Amendment if accommodations for both
equal
In both Plessy and in the 1854 state laws and
the Fourteenth Amendment involved In 1896 seq
rgation by the states approved So years later it
outlawed
But there was no complaint from the South that
Plessy "judgemade" law Plessy accepted as
the law of the land. Negroes did like it, but they
managed to live with it--although at terrible price.
After hafcentury of gross inequality because the
South made effort to enforce equality the Plessy
doctrine challenged and overtlrown.
Now if Plessy the law in 1896 and therefore
until 1854 then is the law today. In football
language you can't count six points when your side
makes touchdown and points when the other side
makes The South wants to change the rules and
throw out the referee
In federal union some branch of government has
to interpret the Constitution under which citizens and
states live function That responsibility is upon the
Supreme Court. If the Court is not to do this who is?
Each Judge? Each governor? Each state legislator Each
U. S. Senator? Each state attorney general? Each city
councilman? Each police commissioner like Eugene Con-
ner is tryig to do in Birmingham, Ala?
What would then become of the guaranteed const
tutional rights of the individual citizen black and
white, North and South?
The men who would tear down the Supreme Court
the who would tear up the Constitution and des-
troy America a land of free men.
In very real sense the NAACP and Negro citi-
zens by insisting their rights under the law the
courts and the Constitution seeking to save and
strengthen America for all citizens
I know we are having battle. Every tactic in the
book is being used against usfrom slick distortion and
evasion to crude and brutal pressure
Just now in Little Fock people are standing by
while officials their influence to solicit money
to operate private segregated schools White Citizens
Council Louisiana reported to have sent $1,000 to
the Jim Crow school fund here.
1t is hard to watch some of the white students get-
ing little education while your high school stu
shut out of school by your Governor
Some have wondered whether colored citizens should
set up school of their This cannot do. We
cannot ourselves finance Jim Crow schools for our child
We cannot choose deliberately to set up the kind
system which has been ruled illegal and unconstitu
tona The segregationists have set up their temporary
schools defy the law If join them and set up
Schools will be defyng the law, also. Besides, we
would be doing just what they want us to do In addi-
ton, would be selling out the youngsters who endur-
ed persecution Central High School last year We would
be betrayng all other Negro children throughout the
nation who hope to go forward to full opportunity, not
backwards to segregation and secondclass citizenship
There will be next Our attorneys tell they
will be ready when the decision down from the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals but they will not dis
close the of their They have done all right
thus and deserve continued patience and trust
We resist the temptation to backslide Victory
is near at hand than some of us think
The opposition is Hopping about but it knows that
H. doesn't have leg to stand on The present makeShft