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beginning of the 1950s, most Blacks, North and South, placed their hopes on the NAACP's legal attacks on segregation.

Building on a series of victories in the lower courts, the NAACP won the legal end of segregated schools on May 17, 1954. But the Supreme Court's announcement that segregated schools were against the law did not bring a quick end to second class schools for blacks, as many had hoped it would.

Prepared for a ruling against separate and unequal education, southern opponents of integration unleashed a reign of terror to keep Blacks from attending formerly all-white schools. Southern white politicians loudly proclaimed disobedience to the Supreme Court's ruling, and President Dwight Eisenhower -- afraid of losing political support -- refused to mandate enforcement of the Court's order.

On May 31, 1955, the Court ruled in the school cases again, ordering schools to integrate "with all deliberate speed." Such a cautious approach seemed to guarantee that full citizenship for southern Blacks was decades away.

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