These decisions, in essence, meant that the South was compelled
to integrate graduate and professional schools. In themselves,
they did not constitute an attack on segregated education. They
merely represented an attempt by the courts to guarantee that
separate education was, in fact, equal education. Southern
states, recognizing the trend of events, began crash programs to
build and upgrade their Negro school systems. At this point, the
N.A.A.C.P. was not certain whether to push on for total
desegregation or whether temporarily to settle for quality
education. However, the stubbornness of some Southern school
boards in refusing to upgrade Negro schools forced the N.A.A.C.P.
lawyers into their decision to make an outright attack on legal
segregation.
In 1950 N.A.A.C.P. lawyers initiated a series of suits around the
country attacking the quality of education in primary and
secondary schools. Three of these suits--Topeka, Kansas, Clarendon
County, South Carolina, and Prince Edward County, Virginia--
became involved in the 1954 Supreme Court desegregation decision.
The N.
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