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The Roberts Case
In April 1850 the Massachusetts Supreme Court rejected a suit filed on behalf of Boston five-year-old Sarah Roberts that sought to outlaw school segregation. There was a school for African American children but Sarah had to pass several all-white schools to get there. Attorney Charles Sumner (1811–1874), who would later become a U.S. Senator and an architect of civil rights for freed slaves, argued the case along with one of the first black lawyers in America, Robert Morris (1823–1882). Sumner's arguments for equality before the law would echo for more than a century. He attempted to prove that racially separate schools could never be equal but did not win the case. The African American community staged a school boycott and held statewide protests. In 1855 the state legislature passed the nation's first law prohibiting school segregation. |