Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, 175 U.S. 528 (1899) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. It is a landmark case, for it allowed the segregation of races in American schools. The Supreme Court overturned their decision in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1899 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States to interpret and decide questions of federal law, including... Racial segregation is a kind of formalized or institutionalized discrimination on the basis of race, characterized by the races separation from each other. ... Holding Racial segregation in public education violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; separate facilities are “inherently unequal. ... 1954 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

HI MOM

In 1897, the board levied a tax in Richmond County, Georgia. With this tax it supported only the white schools. Colored parents and tax payers objected to this tax, and filed a lawsuit. The case was argued before the supreme court of Georgia, after that it came before the federal Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the tax law. Events January 1 - Brooklyn, New York merges with New York City. ... Richmond County is a county located in the state of Georgia. ...

The case was lost by the plaintiffs, and this decision gave legal standing to the segregation of schools.

The decision defends this with economic arguments, among others. It claims that there are many more colored children than white children in the area, and that the board could not afford to supply everyone with education. The court argued that there was a choice between educating 60 white children and educating noone.

The Supreme Court denied that it had any jurisdiction to interfere in the decisions of the state courts. The decision stated:

"Under the circumstances disclosed, we cannot say that this action of the state court was, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, a denial by the state to the plaintiffs and to those associated with them of the equal protection of the laws or of any privileges belonging to them as citizens of the United States, .... the education of the people in schools maintained by state taxation is a matter belonging to the respective states, and any interference on the part of Federal authority with the management of such schools cannot be justified except in the case of a clear and unmistakable disregard of rights secured by the supreme law of the land."

The 'hostility to the colored population' is addressed in the final remark as follows:

"If, in some appropriate proceeding instituted directly for that purpose, the plaintiffs had sought to compel the board of education, out of the funds in its hands or under its control, to establish and maintain a high school for colored children, and if it appeared that the board's refusal to maintain such a school was in fact an abuse of its discretion and in hostility to the colored population because of their race, different questions might have arisen in the state court."

See also

• Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)

Plessy v. ... 1896 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

External links

• Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com (http://laws.findlaw.com/us/175/528.html)