Border States and Civil Rights: Activism Prior to 1955

Abstract

Early civil rights activism prior to 1954 Brown case is marked by the absence of an intervening agency ororganization associated with the type of mass mobilization found in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and other events in the later civil rights movement. The community action in Topeka, Kansas before Brown illustrates that civil rights actions have always been around, but only recent scholarship of the civil rights movement has brought these seemingly less significant campaigns to the fore ground. The activism in Topeka, Kansas, characterized as indirect action tactics, was organized around primarily local level issues. These local level issues were also historically situated prior to the national push to desegregation which occurred after the 1954 Brown decision.