African Americans Teachers Fight for Equality

In 1942, Sue Cowan Williams, head of the Dunbar High School English Department, and a member of the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, sued the school district for equal pay with white teachers. White teachers were paid an annual salary of $526 while black teachers were paid only $331 for doing the same work in the same school system. With the help of Thurgood Marshall, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund attorney, Morris won her case in the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals in 1945. By then, Morris had lost her job as the school board refused to renew her contract. She was rehired in 1952 and served until retirement in 1974. Today, the Central Arkansas Library System branch at Dunbar High is named the Sue Cowan Williams Library in her honor. I’m John Kirk of the UALR History Department and this has been an Arkansas moment.