Fannie Richards v Detroit School
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Brown v Board of Education
Fannie Richards v Detroit School
"The Problem We All Live With"
Racial segregation in schools existed in Detroit in the post-Civil War era. Black educator Fannie Richards was instrumental in bringing it to an end nearly one hundred years before the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education.
Ms. Richards was born in Virginia in 1840. She came to Detroit as a young girl with her family, and attended school in Detroit and Toronto, Canada. After returning to Detroit, she attended the Teachers Training School and in 1863 opened a private school for black children.
In 1865, she was assigned by the Detroit Board of Education to teach at Colored School No. 2, which was racially segregated. She worked with Board of Education member John J. Bagley (who later became the 15th governor of the State of Michigan) to bring a lawsuit against the racial segregation in the Detroit public schools.
Their case was supported by the newly ratified 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which stated that all persons should be treated equally under law. Also supporting their efforts was Ms. Richards' church, the Second Baptist Church (still existing in Detroit's Greektown section), which had been long associated with the Underground Railroad and other means of assisting fugitive slaves.
Michigan law at the time provided that "all residents of any district shall have an equal right to attend any school therein." The Michigan Supreme Court agreed with Ms. Richards and Mr. Bagley that this law entitled black children to attend the same schools as white children. The 1869 decision, written by Chief Justice Thomas M. Cooley, is entitled Workman v Board of Education of Detroit.
John Bagley served as Governor from 1873 to 1876. In 1871, Fannie Richards became the first black educator in Detroit's integrated school system. She taught for the next forty-four years, and in 1872 was selected as the first teacher to implement the then-innovative concept of kindergarten in the Detroit public schools. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.
Justice Cooley served as the 25th Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, from 1864 to 1885. He was a renowned constitutional scholar and public servant until his death in 1898.
Sources:
State of Michign Web Site
Detroit African American History Project
Michigan Supreme Court Historical Society
Michigan Historical Markers
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Last modified: 4/30/2004
