The Forgotten Desegregation of Native American Schools
Few Americans know that the first major U.S. school desegregation case involved Native children, not African Americans.
In the long and often tragic history of education in the United States, the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision is often cited as the milestone that began the process of school desegregation in America. But more than a decade before that landmark ruling, a lesser-known legal battle unfolded in the desert Southwest—one that had profound implications for both Native Americans and the evolving definition of equal protection under the law.
In 1948, a small group of Native American parents in northwestern Arizona took a remarkable step. Dissatisfied with the quality and segregation of the public schools available to their children, they brought a lawsuit against the county, school board, and superintendent of Mohave County. The case became known as **Phillips v. Board of Education of Mohave County**. Their primary complaint was that their children, members of the Fort Mojave Indian community, were forced to attend substandard “Indian schools” separate from local white schools, which were better resourced and staffed.
At the heart of the case was the sharp difference between the “Day School for Indian Children” and the white-only Oatman Grammar School. The day school lacked adequate facilities, teaching materials, and qualified instructors. In addition, the school was more than a mile away from the Indian children’s homes, while the Oatman school was a mere 450 feet away. Despite paying taxes and living in the same district, the Native American families found their children barred on the grounds that Native children were not “qualified” to attend the Oatman school, a rationale ultimately rooted in racism.
The Phillips case came before Arizona state courts, but it gained little national attention despite its clear alignment with the legal battles against segregation in the South. Mohave County officials argued that Native American children belonged in their own schools, citing claims that such an arrangement was best for their culture and that federal Indian schools were sufficient. However, as in later desegregation cases, the real reason was a desire to maintain segregation and privilege.
In a quietly historic decision, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Native families in September 1948. The court found that the exclusion of Indian children from the better-funded, better-staffed public school violated both the Arizona constitution and the principle of equal protection under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The court noted that forcing Native children into a separate and inferior school—when a superior option was steps away—was both unlawful and unfair.
News of the victory was largely localized and failed to become part of the national narrative about desegregation. The story of the Fort Mojave families’ triumph was soon overshadowed by the massive and more public efforts being waged by African American families in the Midwest and South. When the Supreme Court issued its historic ruling in Brown, references to the earlier Native American cases were largely absent from the proceedings and subsequent media coverage.
Yet, the effects of Phillips v. Board of Education were profound for Native communities in Arizona and, ultimately, for the legal principle that “separate but equal” was a myth, no matter the group affected. The case demonstrated that the demand for equal access to public education spanned beyond the Black–white binary often assumed about the history of American civil rights. Native American parents, students, and activists were also on the front lines, challenging injustice in their own communities and setting precedents that benefited others.
The Phillips case is not unique in being forgotten. Similar early challenges to segregation occurred in California and New Mexico involving Latino and Native American students, with little or no reference in mainstream textbooks. The stories of these early civil rights battles remind us that the path to educational equality in the United States was far broader and more complex than the familiar stories told in classrooms and popular culture.
Today, the site of the old Indian day school near Oatman stands abandoned, a quiet testament to the fight for equality waged by families who refused to let their children’s futures be dictated by prejudice or indifference. The lessons of Phillips v. Board of Education of Mohave County continue to resonate: equality is won not only by the famed cases that make headlines, but also by the quiet courage of those who argued, worked, and persisted—often in the most forgotten corners of the nation.
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