Brown v. Board v. the Backlash:
The Choice in 2024 and Beyond
The 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board — the historic Supreme Court ruling that legally mandated public school segregation unconstitutional — was surprisingly unheralded.
Yet, for seven decades or more, American politics have been transformed — promoting and advancing civil rights while also igniting a backlash that ultimately led to Donald Trump.
Brown v. Board accelerated our country’s arduous journey toward racial justice, as the civil rights movement both stimulated and was strengthened by government action. It led to such significant events such as the deployment of the National Guard in 1957 to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as the protection of the first Black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962.
The decision also encouraged a peaceful social revolution, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the sit-ins at whites-only lunch counters, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington and protests in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama.
These actions, in turn, pressured President Lyndon B. Johnson and congressional majorities from both parties to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 while also initiating an anti-poverty program, immigration reform and affirmative action.
However, Brown v. Board also ignited fierce opposition. Southern whites responded with “massive resistance” to desegregation in the 1950s, and a “white backlash” emerged across the nation during the turbulent 1960s. While civil rights initially enjoyed bipartisan support, leading Republicans saw backlash politics as the path to power.
Starting with Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, and continuing with Richard Nixon, the successful 1968 candidate, Republicans adopted a Southern Strategy, appealing to the white backlash by adopting racially tinged appeals to social issues — from “law and order” to “gun rights” and “school prayer.”
By 1980, Ronald Reagan kicked off his campaign in Neshoba County, Mississippi, near where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Two terms later, George H. W. Bush was elected by exploiting his opponent’s furloughing of Willie Horton and supposed opposition to the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
The Southern Strategy has proven effective. Since 1968, Republican presidential candidates have carried most Southern states, except in 1976, when Jimmy Carter of Georgia defeated Gerald Ford of Michigan.
By prohibiting discrimination based on religion, sex and national origin, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 encouraged the expansion of the civil rights struggle to include movements for women’s rights, immigrants’ rights, reproductive rights, disability rights and LGBTQ+ rights, among other efforts for equality.
While progress on all these fronts is well-known, the resistance to racial equality created the template for cultural conservatism on many fronts.
Case In Point: The religious Right emerged in opposition to public school desegregation first, not abortion rights or gay rights. During the 1950s and 60s, Southern whites founded segregation academies — hastily created private schools — to evade desegregation. Often, white churches gave these segregated private schools a theological imprimatur, suggesting they provided religious instruction rather than racial isolation. Figures like Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, began their theo-political activism as advocates for segregated private schools, not just cultural conservatism.
While cutting their teeth by defying desegregation, social conservatives addressed a slew of social issues with racial dog whistles. With law and order, the racial appeal was more of a megaphone than a dog whistle. Social programs? Think of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens.” Immigration? Nonwhite newcomers will “replace” native-born whites.
Trump didn’t set the table for Republican backlash politics — he just feasted on it. From defending discriminatory practices in his family’s real estate business to questioning whether Barack Obama had been born in the United States to warning that Mexico is “sending us rapists” and that we are suffering from invasions by “sh*thole countries,” Trump has consistently used “othering” tactics to amplify the politics of division and scapegoating.
The consequence is an electorate reconfigured by the Southern Strategy. According to exit polls, 61% of white men and 58% of all whites supported Trump in 2020. According to Pew Research Center, Trump supporters are much more likely than Biden voters to oppose diversity, believe whites are major targets of discrimination and perceive immigration as “white replacement.”
The course is clear for those of us who support the heritage of Brown v. Board and want to protect it against backlash politics.
We must mobilize those supporting America’s promise to be a more perfect union. Young people, people of color and unmarried women are striving to survive and succeed in an uncertain economy. This rising American electorate — and many from every walk of life — want to move forward on our journey to justice. They must be convinced that going backward with a Trump Administration will destroy the very foundations of this country, imperfect as it is.
Page S. Gardner of PSG Consulting is a senior political and communications strategist who founded the Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Information and has recently launched Innovating for the Public Good: R&D for Democracy, an ongoing incubator dedicated to sourcing innovative ideas, leveraging emerging technologies and developing long-term solutions to restore trust in public institutions and democracy.