Editing Brown v. Board of Education (section)

==''Brown II''==
In 1955, the Supreme Court considered arguments by the schools requesting relief concerning the task of desegregation. In their decision, which became known as "''Brown II''"<ref>''[[wikisource:Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (349 U.S. 294)|Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka]]'', {{Ussc|349|294|1955}}</ref> the court delegated the task of carrying out school desegregation to district courts with orders that desegregation occur "with all deliberate speed," a phrase traceable to [[Francis Thompson]]'s poem "[[The Hound of Heaven]]".<ref>{{Cite journal
| last= Chen
| first= James Ming
| author-link= Jim Chen
| title= Poetic Justice
| date= May 3, 2012
| series= University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2007-01
| journal= Cardozo Law Review
| volume= 29
| orig-year= 2007
| url= https://ssrn.com/abstract=778884
| access-date= July 23, 2020
| archive-date= May 11, 2024
| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20240511170508/https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=778884
| url-status= live
}}</ref>

Supporters of the earlier decision were displeased with this decision. The language "all deliberate speed" was seen by critics as too ambiguous to ensure reasonable haste for compliance with the court's instruction. Many Southern states and school districts interpreted ''Brown II'' as legal justification for resisting, delaying, and avoiding significant integration for years—and in some cases for a decade or more—using such tactics as closing down school systems, using state money to finance segregated "private" schools, and "token" integration where a few carefully selected black children were admitted to former white-only schools but the vast majority remained in underfunded, unequal black schools.<ref>{{Cite web|series=Civil Rights Movement History & Timeline, 1955|url=https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis55.htm#1955ads|access-date=2023-02-23|title=The ''Brown II'' 'All Deliberate Speed' Decision|publisher=Civil Rights Movement Archive|first=Bruce|last=Hartford|archive-date=June 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608180711/https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis55.htm#1955ads|url-status=live}}</ref>

For example, based on ''Brown II'', the U.S. District Court ruled that [[Prince Edward County, Virginia]] did not have to desegregate immediately. When faced with a court order to finally begin desegregation in 1959 the county board of supervisors stopped appropriating money for public schools, which remained closed for five years, from 1959 to 1964.

White students in the county were given assistance to attend white-only "private academies" that were taught by teachers formerly employed by the public school system, while black students had no education at all unless they moved out of the county. But the public schools reopened after the Supreme Court overturned ''Brown II'' in ''[[Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County]]'', declaring that "...the time for mere 'deliberate speed' has run out" and that the county must provide a public school system for all children regardless of race.<ref>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=Bob |title=They Closed Their Schools |url=https://archive.org/details/theyclosedtheirs00smit |url-access=registration |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |year=1965}}</ref>