We Fought Back

The Black Legal Struggle for Education in Oklahoma Territory

Most people are familiar with the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, which held that state laws mandating racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional. But what about the court cases that far preceded, and informed, this national ruling? They took place in smaller courts, in unsung parts of the United States, including in Oklahoma Territory. There, decades before Brown v. Board, Black citizens worked to challenge legislation and local school board restrictions that segregated their schools. In We Fought Back, Sara Doolittle analyzes a rich array of previously unexplored court challenges during Oklahoma’s territorial period (18891907), revealing how Black residents’ cases reshaped understandings of race, citizenship, and the federal role in American schooling.

After the Civil War, Black homesteaders sought a