Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/12pdf/11-345_l5gm.pdf
Page Number: 32.0

Cite as:  570 U. S. ____ (2013) 

15 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

but  morally  and  intellectually. . . .  [T]he  relation  now 
existing  in  the  slaveholding  States  between  the  two  [rac-
es],  is,  instead  of  an  evil,  a  good—a  positive  good”);  Har-
per,  Memoir  on  Slavery,  in  The  Ideology  of  Slavery  78, 
115–116  (D.  Faust  ed.  1981)  (“Slavery,  as  it  is  said  in  an 
eloquent  article  published  in  a  Southern  periodical  work 
. . . ‘has done more to elevate a degraded race in the scale 
of humanity; to tame the savage; to civilize the barbarous; 
to  soften  the  ferocious;  to  enlighten  the  ignorant,  and  to 
spread the blessings of [C]hristianity among the heathen, 
than  all  the  missionaries  that  philanthropy  and  religion
have  ever  sent  forth’ ”);  Hammond,  The  Mudsill  Speech, 
1858,  in  Defending  Slavery,  supra,  at  80,  87  (“They  are 
elevated  from  the  condition  in  which  God  first  created 
them, by being made our slaves”).

A  century  later,  segregationists  similarly  asserted  that
segregation  was  not  only  benign,  but  good  for  black  stu-
dents.  They  argued,  for  example,  that  separate  schools
protected  black  children  from  racist  white  students  and 
teachers.  See, e.g., Brief for Appellees in Briggs 33–34 (“ ‘I 
have repeatedly seen wise and loving colored parents take 
infinite  pains  to  force  their  little  children  into  schools
where  the  white  children,  white  teachers,  and  white  par-
ents  despised  and  resented  the  dark  child,  made  mock  of
it,  neglected  or  bullied  it,  and  literally  rendered  its  life  a 
living  hell.  Such  parents  want  their  child  to  “fight”  this 
thing out,—but, dear God, at what a cost! . . . We shall get 
a finer, better balance of spirit; an infinitely more capable 
and  rounded  personality  by  putting  children  in  schools 
where  they  are  wanted,  and  where  they  are  happy  and 
inspired, than in thrusting them into hells where they are 
ridiculed  and  hated’ ”  (quoting  DuBois,  Does  the  Negro 
Need Separate Schools? 4 J. of Negro Educ. 328, 330–331 
(1935))); Tr. of Oral Arg. in Bolling v. Sharpe, O. T. 1952, 
No.  413,  p.  56  (“There  was  behind  these  [a]cts  a  kindly 
feeling  [and]  an  intention  to  help  these  people  who  had