Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High / Edition 1

by Robyn Duff Ladino, Alwyn Barr

Overview

In the famous Brown v. the Board of Education decisions of 1954 and 1955, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. Yet history records that it took more than a decade of legal battles, civil rights protests, and, tragically, violent confrontations before black students gained full access to previously white schools.

Mansfield, Texas, a small community southeast of Fort Worth, was the scene of an early school integration attempt. In this book, Robyn Duff Ladino draws on interviews with surviving participants, media reports, and archival research to provide the first full account of the Mansfield school integration crisis of 1956.

Ladino explores how power politics at the local, state, and federal levels ultimately prevented the integration of Mansfield High School in 1956. Her research sheds new light on the actions of Governor Allan Shivers—who, in the eyes of the segregationists, actually validated their cause by his political actions—and it underscores President Dwight Eisenhower's public passivity toward civil rights during his first term of office.

Despite the short-term failure, however, the Mansfield school integration crisis helped pave the way for the successful integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Thus, it deserves a permanent place in the history of the civil rights movement, which this book amply provides.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292746923
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	02/01/1997
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Robyn Duff Ladino is an independent historian and social scientist with several years of teaching experience. She lives in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Alwyn Barr
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Pathway to Equality: The Determination to Change
• 2. The Dismantlement of “Separate but Equal”
• 3. The Creed of Segregation and States’ Rights in the South with an Emphasis on Texas
• 4. Taking a Stand on School Integration: The Dilemma of President Dwight David Eisenhower during His First Term
• 5. The Mansfield School Integration Case: Jackson v. Rawdon
• 6. A Collision Course: The Crisis at Mansfield High School
• 7. A Significant Aftermath: The Mansfield School Integration Case and Crisis
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index