Overview:

Students will examine primary source documents and photographs to explain the ways in which local events lead to cases being presented before the Supreme Court. The Court upholds laws that protect the rights of all people an ensure equal opportunity.

Materials:

• Rosa Parks arrest records (pdf)
• Montgomery Bus Boycott documents and photographs (pdf)
• Browder v Gayle Court Case document (pdf)
• Supreme Court decision documents and photograph (pdf)
• Document analysis worksheet (pdf)
• Photo analysis worksheet (pdf)
• Montgomery to the U.S. Supreme Court flow map (pdf)
• Poster or chart paper

Aim/Essential Question:

How do Supreme Court decisions affect the lives of people living in the United States?

Teachers will need to explain the importance of the basic principles of American democracy that unify us as a nation: our individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; responsibility for the common good; equality of opportunity and equal protection of the law; freedom of speech and religion; majority rule with protection for minority rights; and limitations on government, with power held by the people and delegated by them to their elected officials who are responsible to those who elected them to office.

The Supreme Court, which was established by the Constitution, is responsible for managing conflicts over the interpretations and applications of the law. For example, in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Brown v Board of Education that the doctrine of "separate but equal" had no place in public schools. Separate educational facilities for black and white students were deemed unequal and schools were required to desegregate. In December of 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. She was arrested for violating a city law requiring racial segregation on public buses. Five days later, on the day of Rosa Park's trial, the Montgomery Improvement Association organized a boycott of the public buses. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted for 381 days, was a protest campaign intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transportation system. On February 1, 1956, the federal class action suit of Browder vs. Gayle was filed in the Alabama courts. The lawsuit claimed that the City of Montgomery, the State of Alabama, and the National City Bus Lines were operating city buses in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. On June 4, 1956, the federal district court ruled that Alabama's racial segregation laws for buses were unconstitutional. While the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, segregation remained intact and the boycott continued. On November 13, 1956, the United States Supreme Court decided to uphold the ruling of the lower court and legally ended racial segregation on Alabama's public buses.

Objective:

 Students will analyze primary source documents and photographs to sequence the events that led to the Supreme Court's decision in regard to racial segregation on Alabama's public buses.

Motivation:

• Ask your students to tell what they know about the United States Supreme Court.
• Explain that the United States Supreme Court is the highest judicial court in the United States. The court consists of one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. Their job is to determine whether laws are in agreement with the United States Constitution or the law of the land. If the justices determine that laws are not in agreement with the Constitution or are unconstitutional, the law can no longer be in effect.
• Ask students what topics or laws they feel the Supreme Court should make decisions about.