Delaware: Conflict in a Border State

page 1 | 2 | 3

Wilmington

The city of Wilmington had a black population of about 17,000 out of 110,000 in 1950. Racial prejudice there was less conspicuous than in the rural counties of Sussex and Kent, but most public facilities were segregated. Discrimination confined most African Americans to service and labor jobs. Despite these obstacles, many African Americans still forged successful careers in the face of racism.

The Wilmington NAACP branch
Members of the Wilmington branch of the NAACP pose for a photograph in 1944. In the fall of 1950, the group coordinated an effort of black parents to register their children in white schools in Wilmington and surrounding communities. All were refused. African American attorney Louis Redding worked with the NAACP activists and parents to select the cases that seemed likeliest to win.
(Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Ethel Louise Belton as high school student
Ethel Louise Belton traveled two hours every day to Howard High School in Wilmington from her community of Claymont. The local white high school offered courses and extracurricular activities unavailable at Howard. Ethel’s mother said, “We are all Americans, and when the state sets up separate schools for certain people of a separate color, then I and others are made to feel ashamed and embarrassed.” Nine other black plaintiffs from Claymont felt the same way and joined her in a lawsuit.
(Lent by Brigitte Belton Brown)

Howard High School yearbook
For many years, Howard High School was Delaware’s only business and college preparatory high school for African Americans and served the entire state. With few exceptions, this institution produced the leaders of Delaware’s black community.
(Lent by Dr. Janet Anderson Harmon)

Shirley Barbara Bulah as a grade school student

Shirley Bulah endured a long daily walk to the Hockessin Colored Elementary School. Her mother, Sarah, asked if her daughter could share a bus with white children or have a separate bus. When her requests were refused, she went to see attorney Louis Redding.

Fearful of change, the pastor of the local African Methodist Episcopal Church opposed Sarah Bulah’s lawsuit, and many black people stopped speaking to her. But her push for school integration had the firm support of the Wilmington branch of the NAACP.
(Courtesy of Philip E. Stamps, Jr.)

Hockessin Colored Elementary School, 1941
(Courtesy of Delaware Public Archives)

Louis Redding, local attorney in the Delaware cases, with Thurgood Marshall
Louis Redding, shown here with Thurgood Marshall, received his law degree from Harvard University. In 1929 he became the first African American to practice law in Delaware, and some 20 years later took on the cases of Bulah v. Gebhart and Belton v. Gebhart. According to one NAACP member, Redding accepted no payment for his services. He directed the chapters instead to raise money for court costs.
(Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Back to top

Continue to Delaware (page 3)