The political development of the United States has consistently asserted the independence of the legislative, executive and judicial authorities from each other. Since the founding of the American state and up to the beginning of the XX century, the dominant branch of government was the US Congress, i.e., the legislature. However, at the beginning of the XX century, and especially in the 30s, the main trend in the development of the state mechanism was to strengthen the role of executive power in it. Thus, the influence of the Cold War on the U.S. The executive branch during the Cold War resulted in a flexible redistribution of powers between the legislative and executive authorities, mainly by self-limiting Congress in favor of the federal government during the birth of racial equality.
The changing role of the executive branch led to a positive outcome in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended with a Supreme Court decision that led to the desegregation of schools across America. Prior to the decision, African-American children in Topeka, Kansas were denied access to schools for whites because of laws allowing separate but equal accommodations. The idea of separation, but equal, received legal status in the 1896 Supreme Court decision in the case of Plessis v. Ferguson (Amicus Curiae Brief, 1952). This doctrine required that any individual premises be of the same quality. However, the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education successfully argued that segregation is inherently unequal. Brown’s decision was truly significant because it overturned the separate but equal doctrine established by the Plessis decision (Amicus Curiae Brief, 1952). If earlier the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was interpreted in such a way that equality before the law could be ensured through separate institutions, then with Brown this was no longer true (Amicus Curiae Brief, 1952). The 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law, and the court ruled that separate premises based on race are ipso facto unequal.
With regard to the problem, changes in the position of the executive authorities of parties of various political orientations are characteristic. Under the influence of the ongoing mass protests of African Americans, a group of members of the House of Representatives, who were members of the legal committee, introduced a number of amendments that significantly expanded the scope of the bill and strengthened the government’s responsibility for its compliance. They proposed to prohibit discrimination not only in government agencies and enterprises performing government contracts, but also in all enterprises with more than 25 employees (Kennedy, 1963). The list of public places where segregation was prohibited has significantly expanded. The Ministry of Justice was given broad powers to prosecute violators of the law. Describing the essence of the problem of racism in the United States, President Kennedy said on June 11, 1963: “We are faced primarily with a moral question. It’s as old as the Bible” (Kennedy, 1963). However, the government’s bill was never passed during President Kennedy’s lifetime. The Administration did not so much act in accordance with a certain program, as it reacted to the demands and speeches of the masses of minorities. The size of the concessions made by the Kennedy government, as well as the Roosevelt’s Government at the time, were directly proportional to the strength of the pressure of the masses and the influence of international factors.
References
Amicus Curiae Brief for Brown v. Bd. of Education, Submitted by the Attorney General (1952).
Kennedy, J. F. (1963). Transcript for Radio and Television Report to the American People on Civil Rights.