ion of justice. In the _Morgan_ v.
_Virginia_ decision of 1946,[19-5] for example, the Court launched an
attack on segregation in interstate travel. In another series of cases
it proclaimed the right of Negroes to be tried only in those courts
where Negroes could serve on juries and outlawed the all-white primary
system, which in some one-party states had effectively barred Negroes
from the elective process. The latter decision partly explains the
rise in the number of qualified black voters in twelve southern states
from 645,000 in 1947 to some 1.2 million by 1952. However, many
difficulties remained in the way of full enfranchisement. The poll
tax, literacy tests, and outright intimidation frustrated the
registration of Negroes in many areas, and in some rural counties
black voter registration actually declined in the early 1960's. But
the Court's intervention was crucial because its decisions established
the precedent for federal action that would culminate in the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.

[Footnote 19-5: 328 U.S. 373 (1946).]

These judicial initiatives whittled away at segregation's hold on (p. 476)
the Constitution, but it was the Supreme Court's rulings in the field
of public education that dealt segregation a mortal blow. Its
unanimous decision in the case of _Oliver Brown et al._ v. _Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas_, on 17 May 1954[19-6] not only undermined
segregation in the nation's schools, but by an irresistible extension
of the logic employed in the case also committed the nation at its
highest levels to the principle of racial equality. The Court's
conclusion that "separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal" exposed segregation in all public areas to renewed judicial
scrutiny. It was, as Professor Woodward described it, the most
far-reaching Court decision in a century, and it marked the beginning
of the end of Jim Crow's reign in America.[19-7]

[Footnote 19-6: 347 U.S. 483 (1954); see also 349 U.S.
294 (1955).]

[Footnote 19-7: Woodward, _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_, p. 147.]

But it was only the beginning, for the Court's order that the
transition to racially nondiscriminatory school systems be
accomplished "with all deliberate speed"[19-8] encountered massive
resistance in many places. Despite ceaseless litigation and further
affirmations by the Court, and despite enforcement by fed