Black Teachers' Salaries and the Federal Courts Before Brown V. Board of Education: One Beginning for Equity

Abstract

The elimination of racial discrimination in employment has been a long and continuing struggle for blacks in the United States. History and the enactment of numerous civil rights laws affirm this fact.' Public education also was not immune from using concepts about race and equality in employment practices that were conceived in inequity and born in infamy.2 This article explains how one racially discriminatory employment practice, unequal salary schedules for black and white teachers with similar qualifications, was eliminated in the public schools. The defeat of such a discriminatory condition took place primarily in the federal courts through the leadership of the newly appointed assistant special council for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Thurgood Marshall,3 whose personal commitment and legal talents were essential to the successful outcome. Besides the often cited higher education cases that raised equal protection issues,4 the teacher salary schedule cases also extended blacks' equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.