MAY 17, 1954: BROWN vs BOARD OF EDUCATION DECIDED

 

Linda Brown (L), the 10 years old, who was refused admission to white elementary school, and her 6-yr-old sister Terry Lynn walking along railroad tracks to bus which will take them to segregated Monroe Elementary School.

Carl Iwasaki's assignment for LIFE magazine was to photograph the Brown Sisters starting school during the time of the Brown vs. Board of Education trial. This essay ultimately was one of Iwasaki's most poignant and significant. The remarkable photograph of Linda Brown and her younger sister walking to school is one of the more iconic photographs representing the early civil rights struggles of the 1950s. Recently, Iwasaki, now 87, remarked about this photo, "I distinctly remember tagging along with Linda and her sister on their 20-minute walk to school. I spent two days on the assignment and recall that it seemed curious that there was virtually no other photo coverage of the Brown family. I had a hunch as I worked that I was covering a history-making story."

In this landmark court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling that State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier and served as a catalyst for expanding the civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s and paved the way for significant opportunities for African Americans in our society—especially for equal justice, fairness and education.


Japanese-American Carl Iwasaki took up photography as a middle school student and began receiving assignments for the student newspaper and yearbook as he entered high school. His development, though, was interrupted when he and his family were forced into a prison camp in Wyoming by the War Relocation Authority. This arm of the government was designed to protect American soil during WWII from potentially dangerous Japanese infiltrators and locked thousands of people up for no other reason than their race.

While the experience was not a pleasant one, it did put Iwasaki in line for his first commission. Upon his release, in 1943, he was hired to take photographs for the WRA, chronicling life inside the camps and the relief experienced upon release. Working from Denver, he took over 1300 photographs for the project and gained enough on-the-job training to pursue a full-time photography career after the war. Iwasaki worked for Life, Time and Sports Illustrated, often drawn to stories about the marginalized and disenfranchised; his photos of the civil rights movement are some of the most affecting

Hikaru “Carl” Iwasaki, famed Japanese-American photographer, dies at 93 in Denver

Brown Sisters Walk to School, Topeka, Kansas, 1953 Photograph by Carl Iwasaki

Via The Denver Post


Hikaru “Carl” Iwasaki, an American of Japanese heritage who was relocated to a World War II internment camp as a teen and went on to become a renowned photojournalist, died last week in his Denver home. He was 93.

As a contributor to Time, Life and Sports Illustrated magazines, among other publications, Iwasaki photographed several presidents and multiple sport stars. His work also included many everyday Japanese-Americans settling throughout the country in the aftermath of World War II internment as well as documenting the civil rights movement, including Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., in the 1950s.

“He was a real old-timer, well-known in this community among other (photographers) and journalists,” said Dick Woodbury, a colleague and long-time friend.

Woodbury, who met Iwasaki at an Air Force Academy home football game in 1962, described his friend as “a kind, gracious, unassuming person, a very hard worker.”

Born Oct. 18, 1923, in San Jose, Calif., Iwasaki became interested in photography through his high school yearbook and newspaper. At age 19, Iwasaki and his family were sent to an internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyo.

Iwasaki’s photo skills led him to a position with the War Relocation Authority photo unit in Denver, where he worked in a darkroom. He soon became a WRA photographer, documenting Japanese-Americans released from camps as they resettled throughout the country.

Over the course of his journalism career, Iwasaki photographed Presidents Ford, Nixon, Truman and Eisenhower.

Eisenhower’s connections to Denver — he recovered from a heart attack here — helped Iwasaki form a special bond with Ike.

“Not many people know about this, but (Eisenhower) loved to paint,” Iwasaki told the Monroe Gallery of Photography in 2010. “I photographed him painting, and he autographed it for me. … I got to know him very well.”

Monroe featured Iwasaki’s work in a Santa Fe gallery.

“Everyone recognizes his work as a photographer,” said Dean Iwasaki, his son. “It was real art. He had an eye for that.”

Iwasaki had been a member of the Denver Press Club since the 1950s.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Beatrice, in 2005. He is survived by two sons, Dean, of Denver, and John, of Connecticut; a daughter, Janice, of California; two stepsons, Tom and Ed; and numerous grandchildren.

Private family services are pending.

Carl Iwasaki's photograph of the Brown Sisters in featured in the current exhibition "History in a Moment" through November 20, 2016.

September 4, 1957

Ed Clark—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Segregationists rousted from an anti-integration protest, Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957

 

 

On September 4, 1957, the "Little Rock Nine" attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School but were turned away by Arkansas National Guard troops called out by the governor. When Elizabeth Eckford arrived at the campus at the intersection of 14^th and Park Streets, she was confronted by an angry mob of segregationist protestors. She attempted to enter at the front of the school but was directed back out to the street by the guardsmen. Walking alone, surrounded by the crowd, she eventually reached the south end of Park Street and sat down on a bench to wait for a city bus to take her to her mother’s workplace. Of her experience, Eckford

They moved closer and closer. ... Somebody started yelling. ... I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the crowd—someone who maybe could help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I looked at her again, she spat on me.

 

Grey Villet

Members of the Little Rock Nine during legal hearings on their attempts to enter Little Rock Central High School, September 1957

Ed Clark—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Federal troops escorting African American students to school during integration, September, 1957

 

 

Ernest C. Withers

Desegregation of Central High School by The "Little Rock Nine", Little Rock, 1957

 

 

September 25, 1957, became a historic day in the Nation when nine courageous children risked their lives to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Confronted by a hostile crowd and escorted by the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne, they shouldered the burden of integrating a then segregated public school system. Although the Supreme Court’s Landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education struck down racial segregation in public schools, it was the courageous actions of these nine young champions of school integration that tested the strength of that decision. Their actions not only mobilized a Nation to insure that access to a quality education was granted to all Americans, but they helped to define the civil rights movement. They became known as the Little Rock Nine. via LittleRock9.com

Related: LIFE.com         Brave Hearts: Remembering the Little Rock Nine

Look back: 60 years since Brown v. Board of Education

Brown Sisters Walk to School, Topeka, Kansas, 1953. Photograph by Carl Iwasaki

Via MSNBC

It has been 60 years since the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education outlawed school segregation in America. The decision shook the country to its core, defying the fundamentals of the country’s most ardent and longstanding manifestations of racism – the legal, physical separation of the races.

 

Portrait of African American students for whom the Board of Education case was brought (Left to right)- Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown, James Emanuel, Lucinda Todd and Lena Carper. Topeka, Kansas, 1953. Photo by Carl Iwasaki/Time & Life/Getty   Click for slide show

The 1954 decision ruling that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment (guaranteeing equal protection), as well as the Fifth Amendment (guaranteeing due process), forced the country – and the court, for that matter – to reckon with the unfulfilled Constitutional rights of countless African Americans who’d for generations been denied the most basic rights.

But many cities and school districts fought compliance of the law. And a year later, in 1955, the Supreme Court ordered that districts desegregate with “all deliberate speed.” While some schools integrated with varying degrees of success, the decision sparked a mass exodus of white students from desegregated public schools.

“If we can organize the Southern States for massive resistance to this order I think that, in time, the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South,” former Sen. Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia, said in 1954. He called the decision “the most serious blow that has yet been struck against the rights of the states in a matter vitally affecting their authority and welfare.”

In many cases, rather than integrate, state school officials simply shutdown public schools. In one case, in 1959, officials in Prince Edward County Virginia closed the school system, which remained closed for the next five years.

In another act of resistance, white parents began removing their children from the public school system all together. Because Brown v. Board only applied to public schools, white parents across the country began to form what came to be known as “Segregation Academies,” all-white private schools that skirted the Supreme Court’s mandates. The so-called “Seg Academies” flourished throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. And even into the late 1970s and 1980s, when districts began bussing programs to diversify stubbornly segregated public schools, many whites erected barricades, hurled insults and in some cases resorted to petty violence.

A Photographic Legacy: the Career of Japanese American Icon Carl Iwasaki

One of photographer Carl Iwasaki's (pictured right) subjects was Japanese Prince Akihito during his tour of North America.

From President Dwight Eisenhower and the Civil Rights Movement to Football Legend Joe Namath, Iwasaki’s photography career tells the story of U.S. history.

By Christine McFadden, Pacific Citizen Correspondent
March 2, 2012
Via The Pacific Citizen

Most Americans do not know famed photographer Carl Iwasaki personally, but they are likely familiar with his iconic work that has graced the covers of Time Magazine, Life and Sports Illustrated during his six decades long career.

Iwasaki was there in person to capture the desegregation of schools in the South. It was his vivid photo of Linda Brown and her sister Cheryl walking to school that so aptly covered the story of Brown v. Board of Education during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

He was also lucky enough to photograph President Dwight Eisenhower three times, getting to know the former president on a personal level. He would eventually capture the lives of the likes of Presidents Richard Nixon and Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and he spent over a year following famed football icon Joe Namuth whose image graced the August 2004 Sports Illustrated cover.
“Not many people know about this, but (Eisenhower) loved to paint,” said Iwasaki, 87, who counts the former president as one of his favorite subjects to photograph. “I photographed him painting and he autographed it for me … I got to know him very well.”

“I try to shoot the pictures naturally, without too much posing,” he adds about his famous works.
Although now retired in Denver with three kids, Iwasaki’s work is still shown in galleries and exhibits across the country including the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sid Monroe, owner of the Monroe Gallery, marvels at Iwasaki’s ability to tell an individual’s story from one single photograph.

“That’s something that a lot of [Iwasaki’s] photographs do, and especially the [one of the] Brown sisters,” he said.

But Monroe admires Iwasaki not only for his talent, but for how he embarked on his career in photography. It was during his incarceration at Heart Mountain that he began his professional career.
“His background and his entry into photography is really extraordinary,” said Monroe. “I can’t think of any other photographer that has even a remotely similar story.”

Iwasaki was 18 and a senior in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He and his family were eventually sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming during World War II along with tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated along the West Coast.
One of his first jobs at the camp was as an X-ray technician because of his limited photography background. Eventually he became friends with some of the editors at the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel.

One day some War Relocation Authority photographers were on site to take pictures of some of the scenes and people. Iwasaki struck up a conversation with the photographers when he learned that there was an opening for a darkroom technician at their Denver headquarters.

Iwasaki was soon hired for the position and recalled how difficult it was for him to leave behind his mother and sister who were still incarcerated at Heart Mountain.

“That was the hardest part,” he said. But he was also wary of how Japanese Americans would be treated while the U.S. was still at war with Japan. “It was a little scary because I just didn’t know how the people felt about [us].”

At first, Iwasaki spent most of his time in a photo lab processing film and making prints. In his spare time he photographed some Japanese Americans that had relocated to the Denver area.
Soon his photos got noticed and he was hired to work in the WRA’s Photographic Section, or WRAPS, which documented relocated internees adjusting to life outside the camps.

“I guess they liked what I shot,” said Iwasaki.

“Mr. Iwasaki was the only Japanese American who was hired full-time as an official photographer for the WRAPS,” said UCLA professor Lane Hirabayashi, who featured Iwasaki in his book: “Japanese-American Resettlement Through the Lens: Hikaru Iwasaki and the WRA’s Photographic Section, 1943-1945.”

Several famous photographers worked at the WRA including Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Francis Steward, Tom Parker and Charles Mace. Iwasaki is now the only living photographer from this distinguished group.

Although the only JA to be documenting his community’s struggle for the WRA, Iwasaki says in general he was treated well. Still that didn’t stop his feelings of anxiety at the beginning, especially fearing that some would think he was a spy.

“At that time I was afraid,” said Iwasaki. “Here’s the Japanese person carrying cameras.”
When the war finally ended, Iwasaki was the first WRA photographer to head back to California to document the return of the evacuees.

He recalls that some cities were hostile to the returning Japanese Americans with some towns experiencing shooting incidents. He notes that San Jose was the most welcoming city to the returning evacuees.

“I think the WRA did a fabulous job,” said Iwasaki. “Like I said, there were just a couple of incidents, but as a whole, the evacuees were brought back and were very, very happy to be back.”
It was after working for WRAPS for a few years that Iwasaki would have another chance encounter that would further his career. In Denver he happened to accidentally meet a Time Magazine bureau chief. Since no other photographers were available, he was asked to shoot a political campaign in Wyoming for the notable magazine.

The political campaign was Iwasaki’s big break.

“By luck it ran four pages and a half in Life Magazine,” he said. “It was very exciting.”
Soon he was sitting down with Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon for photo shoots. One of his photography subjects was also Emperor Akihito while he was still a prince and touring North America.

 Although now retired and no longer taking photos, Iwasaki’s legacy will continue on in the various works and galleries that continue to show his iconic work and expansive career.

“It’s definitely ironic, given his background,” said Monroe “He was able to succeed not only despite a lack of training and a lack of experience, but also just sort of overcoming that emotional obstacle of being interned.”

SEPTEMBER 25, 1957:1,000 MEMBERS OF 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION OF THE US ARMY ESCORT 9 CHILDREN TO SCHOOL

Grey Villet: The Little Rock Nine enter classroom to register after escort from Army's 101st Airborne Division, September 254, 1957


Three years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which officially ended public-school segregation, a federal court ordered the Little Rock High School to comply.

On September 2, 1957, the night before school was to start for the year, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the state's National Guard to surround Little Rock Central High School and prevent any black students from entering in order to protect "citizens and property from possible violence by protesters" he claimed were headed in caravans toward Little Rock.


A federal judge granted an injunction against the Governor's use of National Guard troops to prevent integration and they were withdrawn on September 20.

When school resumed on Monday, September 23, Central High was surrounded by Little Rock policemen. About 1,000 people gathered in front of the school. The police escorted the nine black students to a side door where they quietly entered the building as classes were to begin. When the mob learned the blacks were inside, they began to challenge the police and surge toward the school with shouts and threats. Fearful the police would be unable to control the crowd, the school administration moved the black students out a side door before noon.

U.S. Congressman Brooks Hays and Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann asked the federal government for help, first in the form of U.S. marshals. Finally, on September 24, Mann sent a telegram to President Eisenhower requesting troops. They were dispatched that day and the President also federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard, taking it away from the Governor.

On September 25, 1957, nine black students entered the school under the protection of 1,000 members of the "Screaming Eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army.

The Little Rock Nine, as they nine students came to be known, were a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Little Rock Central High School still functions as part of the Little Rock School District, and is now a National Historic Site that houses a Civil Rights Museum, administered in partnership with the National Park Service, to commemorate the events of 1957.

More: Little Rock Nine Foundation

Related: Little Rock member Jefferson Thomas dies.