any further action. In 1948, the Supreme Court
attacked Oklahoma for its failure to permit a Negro to enroll in its
state law school. The Oklahoma Board of Regents, then, decided to admit
Negroes to any course of study not provided for by the state college for
Negroes. This was a considerable step forward.

In 1950, in Sweatt v. Painter, the Supreme Court condemned an attempt by
the state of Texas to establish a special law school overnight in which
it could enroll a Negro applicant. The Court said that this fly-by-night
institution was not equal, and it insisted that an equal institution must
include equal faculty, equal library, and equal prestige. It argued that
part of an equal degree was the prestige conferred on the graduate by the
status of that institution. To be equal, the Court reasoned, the separate
school must carry an equal degree of professional status. It also
decided, in McLaurin v. Oklahama Regents, that it was unconstitutional
for a university to segregate a Negro student within its premises.
Oklahoma had roped off part of its university's classrooms, library, and
dining room as a means of accommodating a graduate student in the School
of Education. The Court argued that this handicapped a student in his
pursuit of learning and that part of a graduate education included the
ability to engage in open discussion with other students.

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.A.