Supreme Court adopts “Southern Manifesto.”

The ghost of Strom Thurmond now sits on the Court.

In 1956, two years after Brown v Bord of Education, segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond rose to speak on the floor of the United States Senate and presented what became known as the Southern Manifesto. It was call to arms against the Court’s decision that separate but equal schools could never be equal. The Southern Manifesto was signed by 19 senators and 77 congressmen.

In part it said that the Court order to integrate:

…is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding.

Jack Greenberg, now law professor at Columbia and who worked with Thurgood Marshall on the original Brown case said:

Following Brown, there was massive resistance that lasted some 15 years, he said. This is essentially the rebirth of massive resistance in more acceptable form.