Massive Resistance

Definition

Massive Resistance was a political and social movement in the Southern United States in the 1950s and 1960s that sought to prevent the racial desegregation of public schools and other public facilities following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It involved a coordinated effort by Southern state and local governments to obstruct and resist federal desegregation efforts through legal and extralegal means.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Massive Resistance was a coordinated effort by Southern states to defy the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
2. Virginia was a key leader in the Massive Resistance movement, with the state's governor, U.S. senators, and state legislature working to enact laws and policies to prevent school desegregation.
3. The Massive Resistance strategy involved closing public schools rather than integrating them, as well as using legal maneuvers to delay or block desegregation efforts.
4. The movement also involved the use of violence and intimidation tactics, such as the bombing of schools and the harassment of African American students attempting to enroll in previously all-white schools.
5. Massive Resistance ultimately failed to prevent the desegregation of public schools, as the federal government and the courts intervened to enforce the Brown decision and protect the civil rights of African Americans.

Review Questions

• Describe the key goals and strategies of the Massive Resistance movement in the context of the African American struggle for civil rights.
  • The Massive Resistance movement was a coordinated effort by Southern states to defy the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision and prevent the desegregation of public schools and other public facilities. The movement's key goals were to maintain racial segregation and white supremacy in the South, using a variety of legal and extralegal tactics such as closing public schools, enacting laws to delay desegregation, and employing violence and intimidation against African American students and civil rights activists. Massive Resistance was a direct challenge to the African American struggle for equal rights and represented a desperate attempt by white Southern leaders to preserve the Jim Crow system of racial discrimination.
• Explain how the legal doctrines of interposition and nullification were used to justify and support the Massive Resistance movement.
  • The Massive Resistance movement relied heavily on the legal theories of interposition and nullification to challenge federal authority and justify the Southern states' defiance of desegregation efforts. Interposition was the claim that states had the right to 'interpose' their authority between the federal government and their citizens, allowing them to refuse to comply with federal laws or court rulings deemed unconstitutional. Nullification went even further, asserting that states could unilaterally declare federal laws null and void within their borders. Southern states invoked these doctrines to argue that they had the legal and constitutional right to resist the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision and maintain segregated public schools, despite the federal government's efforts to enforce desegregation.
• Analyze the ultimate failure of the Massive Resistance movement and its impact on the broader African American civil rights struggle.
  • Despite the determined efforts of Southern states to prevent desegregation through Massive Resistance, the movement ultimately failed to achieve its goals. The federal government and the courts intervened to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision and protect the civil rights of African Americans, using measures such as sending in federal troops and issuing injunctions against state resistance efforts. The collapse of Massive Resistance represented a major victory for the African American civil rights movement, demonstrating that the federal government would not tolerate states' defiance of constitutional protections and the rule of law. This paved the way for further advances in the struggle for racial equality, including the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s. The failure of Massive Resistance was a crucial turning point that helped shift the balance of power away from white supremacy and toward the realization of the promises of the 14th Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement.

Related terms

Interposition: The legal doctrine used by Southern states to assert their authority over the federal government and justify their resistance to desegregation efforts.

Nullification: The process by which a state declares a federal law to be unconstitutional and therefore null and void within its borders.

Segregation: The policy of separating people based on race, typically enforcing the separation of white and non-white individuals in public facilities and services.