Question

Eyes on the prize questions 1. what did thurgood marshall (who would later become a supreme court justice) mean when he said "90 odd years is pretty gradual?" 2. what happened to autherine lucy? how did this affect the movement to desegregate schools in the south?

Answer 1

Answer 1. He said that over 90 years had passed since the emancipation proclamation and that he believed in gradualism. People claimed that you can't just delete all prejudice over night and he explained that he believed in gradual change as well and that 90 years is pretty gradual because things should have changed since then and went for the better.

Answer 2. Autherine Lucy was expelled from the University of Alabama where she had previously been enrolled because the board of trustees didn't want her due to her race. When she sued them and they had to take her back, they made her expulsion permanent because of a technicality in which they stated that she slandered the University.

Answer 3. It gave the desegregation movements and civil rights movements more power because that was just another example of racial inequality and extreme racism in the country. These kinds of events only strengthened them and took them to the 60s when they finally managed to win their rights through the civil rights act.