Watson v. City of Memphis Opinion

    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 424.— October Teem , 1962.

1. A. Watson, Jr., et aL, 
Petitioners,

v.
City o f Memphis et aL

On Writ o f Certiorari to the 
United States Court o f Ap­
peals for the Sixth Circuit.

[May 27, 1963.]

Ma. Justice GoMjbkhg delivered the opinion of the 
Court.

The in this ewe, simply stated, is whether the City
o f Memphis may further delay in meeting fully its consti­
tutional obligation under the Fourteenth Amendment to 
desegregate its public -parks and other-municipal recrea­
tional fasiEtieSr
' ".The petitionsrs, adult Negro residents o f Memphis, 
cesmiBenced this action against the city in M ay 1960 in 
the United States District Court for the Western District 
o f Tennessee, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief 
directing ijamediate desegregation o f municipal paths m d  
other city-owned or operated, recreational facilities from 
which Negroes were -then still excluded. The city denied 
neither the fact that the m ajority o f the relevant facilities 
were operated on a basis nor its duty under the
Fourteenth Amendment to terminate its policy of condi­
tioning use o f such facilities on race. Instead, it pointed 
to the partial desegregation already effected and at­
tempted to justify its further delay in conforming fulty 
«nd at once to constitutional mandates by urging the need 
apd wisdom of proceeding slowly and gradually in its 
desegregation efforts.

The District Court denied the relief sought by the peti­
tioners and ordered the city to submit, within six months, 
a plan providing additional time for desegregation o f the



2 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS.

relevant facilities.1 The Court o f Appeals for the Sixth 
Circuit affirmed. 303 F. 2d 863. We granted certiorari, 
371 U. S. 909, to consider the important question pre­
sented and the applicability here o f the principles enun­
ciated by this Court in the second Brown decision, Brown 
v. Board of Education, 349 U. S. 294, upon which the 
courts below relied in further delaying complete vindica­
tion of the petitioners’ constitutional rights.

We find the second Brown decision to be inapplicable 
here and accordingly reverse the judgment below.

I.

It is important at the outset to note the chronological 
context in which the city makes its claim to entitlement to 
additional time within which to work out complete elimi­
nation of racial barriers to use o f the public facilities here 
involved. It is now more than nine years since this Court 
held in the first Brown decision, Brown v. Board o f Edu­
cation, 347 U. S. 483, that ra d ii segregation in state pub­
lic schools violates the Equal Protection Clause o f the 
Fourteenth Amendment. And it was almost eight years 
ago— in 1955, the year after the decision on the merits in 
Sroaw—that the constitutional proscription o f state en­
forced racial segregation was found to apply to public 
recreational facilities. See Dawson v. Mayor and City 
Council o f Baltimore, 220 F. 2d 386, aff’d, 350 U. S. 877; 
see also Muir v. Louisville Park Theatrical Assn., 347 
U. S. 971.

Thus, the applicability here o f the factors and reason­
ing relied on in framing the 1955 decree in the second 
Brown decision, supra, which contemplated the possible 
need o f some limited delay in effecting total desegregation

1 The plan ultimately formulated, though not part of the record 
here, was described in oral argument before the Court of Appeals. 
It does not provide for complete desegregation o f all facilities until 
1971.



WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS. 3

of public schools, must be considered not only in the con­
text of factual similarities, if any, between that case and 
this one, but also in light of the significant fact that 
the governing constitutional principles no longer bear 
the imprint of newly enunciated doctrine. In consider­
ing the appropriateness o f the equitable decree entered 
below inviting a plan calling for an even longer delay in 
effecting desegregation, we cannot ignore the passage of 
a substantial period o f time since the original declara­
tion of the manifest unconstitutionality of racial practices 
such as are here challenged, the repeated and numerous 
decisions giving notice of such illegality,2 and the many 
intervening opportunities heretofore available to attain 
the equality of treatment which the Fourteenth Amend­
ment commands the States to achieve. These factors 
must inevitably and substantially temper the present 
import of such broad policy considerations as may have 
underlain, even in part, the form of decree ultimately 
framed in the Brown case. Given the extended time 
which has elapsed, it is far from clear that the mandate 
o f the second Brown decision requiring that desegregation 
proceed with “ all deliberate speed” would today be fully 
satisfied by types of plans or programs for desegregation 
o f public educational facilities which eight years ago might

j 2 See, e. g., Dawson v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 220 
F. 2d 386, aff’d, 350 U. S. 877 (beaches and bathhouses); New Or­
leans City Park Improvement Asm. v. Detiege, 252 F. 2d 122, aff’d, 
358 U. S. 54 (golf courses and other facilities); City of St. Petersburg 
v. Almp, 238 F. 2d 830 (beach and swimming pools); Tate v. Depart­
ment of Conservation and Development, 133 F. Supp. 53, aff’d, 231 
F. 2d 615, cert, denied, 352 U. S. 838 (parks); Moorhead v. City of 
Fort Lauderdale, 152 F. Supp. 131, aff’d, 248 F. 2d 544 (golf course); 
Fayson v. Beard, 134 F. Supp. 379 (parks); Holley v. City of Ports­
mouth, 150 F. Supp. 6 (golf course); Ward v. City of Miami, 151 F. 
Supp. 593 (golf course); Willie v. Harris County, 202 F. Supp. 549 
(park). It is noteworthy that in none of these cases was the possi­
bility of delay in effecting desegregation even considered.



4 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS.

have been deemed sufficient. Brown never contemplated 
that the concept o f “ deliberate speed” would countenance 
indefinite delay in elimination o f racial barriers in schools, 
let alone other public facilities not involving the same 
physical problems or comparable conditions.

II.
When, in 1954, in the first Brown decision, this Court 

declared the constitutional impermissibility o f racial 
segregation in public schools, it did not immediately frame 
a decree, but instead invited and heard further argument 
on the question o f relief. In its subsequent opinion, the 
Court noted that “ [f]u ll implementation of these [appli­
cable] constitutional principles may require solution of 
varied and local school problems”  and indicated an appro­
priate scope for the application of equitable principles 
consistent with both public and private need and for 
“exercise o f [the] . . . traditional attributes o f equity 
power.”  349 U. S., at 299-300. The District Courts to 
which the cases there under consideration were remanded 
were invested with a discretion appropriate to ultimate 
fashioning o f detailed relief consonant with properly cog­
nizable local conditions. This did not mean, however, 
that the discretion was even then unfettered or exercisable 
without restraint. Basic to the remand was the concept 
that desegregation must proceed with “all deliberate 
speed,”  and the problems which might be considered and 
which might justify a decree requiring something less than 
immediate and total desegregation were severely de­
limited. H ostility to the constitutional precepts under­
lying the original decision was expressly and firmly 
pretermitted as such an operative factor. Id., at 300.

The nature o f the ultimate resolution effected in the 
second Brown decision largely reflected no more than a 
recognition o f the unusual and particular problems in­
hering in desegregating large numbers of schools through­



WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS. 5

out the country. The careful specification of factors 
relevant to a determination whether any delay in com­
plying fully and completely with the constitutional man­
date would be warranted demonstrated a concern that 
delay not be conditioned upon insufficient reasons or, in 
any event, tolerated unless it imperatively and eompel- 
lingly appeared unavoidable.

This case presents no obvious occasion for the appli­
cation of Brown. We are not here confronted with 
attempted desegregation of a local school system with 
any or all of the perhaps uniquely attendant problems, 
administrative and other, specified in the second Brown 
decision as proper considerations in weighing the need 
for further delay in vindicating the Fourteenth Amend­
ment rights of petitioners.® Desegregation of parks and 
other recreational facilities does not present the same 
kinds of cognizable difficulties inhering in elimination of 
racial classification in schools, at which attendance is com­
pulsory, the adequacy of teachers and facilities crucial, 
and questions o f geographic assignment often of major 
significance.* 4

8 The factors set out by the Court in the second Brown decision 
were ‘ ‘problems related to administration, arising from the physical 
condition of the school plant, the school transportation system, per­
sonnel, revision of school districts and attendance areas into com­
pact units to achieve a system of determining admission to the public 
schools on a nonracial basis, and revision o f local laws and regulations 
which may be necessary in solving the foregoing problems.” 349 
U. S., at 300-301.

4 Recognition o f the possible need for delay has not even been 
extended to desegregation of state colleges or universities in which 
like problems were not presented. See, e. g., Florida ex rel. Hawkins 
v. Board of Control, 350 U. S. 413, where, in remanding on the 
authority of Brown, this Court said that “ [a]s this case involves the 
admission of a Negro to a graduate professional school, there is no 
reason for delay. He is entitled to prompt admission under the rules 
and regulations applicable to other qualified candidates.”  350 U. S., 
at 414. See also Lucy v. Adams, 350 U. S. 1. Similarly, both before



6 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS.

M ost importantly, o f course, it must be recognized that 
even the delay countenanced by Brown was a necessary, 
albeit significant, adaptation o f the usual principle that 
any deprivation of constitutional rights calls for prompt 
rectification. The rights here asserted are, like all such 
rights, present rights; they are not merely hopes to 
some future enjoyment of some formalistic constitutional 
promise. The basic guarantees o f our Constitution are 
warrants for the here and now and, unless there is an 
overwhelmingly compelling reason, they are to be 
promptly fulfilled.8 The second Brown decision is but 
a narrowly drawn, and carefully limited, qualification 
upon usual precepts o f constitutional adjudication and is 
not to be unnecessarily expanded in application.

Solely because o f their race, the petitioners here have 
been refused the use o f city-owned or operated parks 
and other recreational facilities which the Constitution 
mandates be open to their enjoyment on equal terms 
with white persons. The city has effected, continues to 
effect, and claims the right or need to prolong patently 
unconstitutional racial discriminations violative o f  now 5 *

and after Brown, delay Isas neither been-siqggeeted nor countenanced 
in eliminating operation of racial barriers with respect to trsiMporta- 
tion, e. g., Boynton v. Virginia, 864 IT. S. 454; Hendersons. United 
States, 339 U. S. 816; Morgan v. Virginia, 328 IT. 8 ; 373; Browder v. 
Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707, aff’d, 352 U. S. 908, voting, e. g., SchmU 
v. Davis, 336 U. S. 933; Smith v, AUwright, 321 TJ, 8, 649, racial 
zoning of property, e. g., City of Richmond v  . Beans, 281 U  S. 704; 
Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, or employment rights and union 
representation, e. g., Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Howard, 
343 U. 8. 768.

5 This principle was well established even under the now discarded
“separate but equal” doctrine. See, e. g., McLaurm v. Oklahoma 
State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U, S. 637, 642; Sweatt v 
Painter, 339 U. S. 629, 635; Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University 
of Oklahoma, 332 U. S. 631, 632-633. See also Florida ex rd. 
Hawkins v. Board of Control, 350 U. S. 413, 414, and notes 2 and 4, 
supra.



WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS. 7

long-declared and well-established individual rights. The 
claims o f the city to further delay in affording the peti­
tioners that to which they are clearly and unquestionably 
entitled cannot be upheld except upon the most con­
vincing and impressive demonstration by the city that 
such delay is manifestly compelled by constitutionally 
cognizable circumstances warranting the exercise o f an 
appropriate equitable discretion by a court. In short, 
the city must sustain an extremely heavy burden of proof.

Examination o f the facts o f this ease in light o f the 
foregoing discussion discloses with singular clarity that 
this burden has not been sustained; indeed, it is patent 
from the record that the principles enunciated in the 
second Brown decision have absolutely no application 
here.

III.
The findings o f the District Court disclose an unmis­

takable and pervasive pattern o f local segregation, which, 
in fact, the city makes no attempt to deny, byt merely 
to justify as necessary for the time being. Memphis owns 
181 paries, all o f which are operated by the Memphis 
Park Commission. Of these, only 25 were at the time 
o f trial open to use without regard to race; 6 58 were re­
stricted to use by whites and 25 to use by Negroes; the 
fpjinaining 23 parks were undeveloped raw land. Subject 
to exceptions, neighborhood parks were generally segre­
gated according to the racial character o f the area in which 
located. The City Park Commission also operates a num­
ber o f additional recreational facilities, by far the largest

* These figures, and others referred in the text, apparently repre­
sent the total extent of progress, as of the time o f trial, toward 
desegregation o f recreational facilities since this Court's decision 
eight years ago outlawing the practices here in question. So far as 
appears, none o f the relevant facilities were open for use without 
regard to race prior to 1955, and, hr fact, several new parks have 
been opened on a segregated baas since that time.



8 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS.

share of which were found to be racially segregated. 
Though a zoo, an art gallery and certain boating and other 
facilities are now desegregated, about two-thirds (40) of 
the 61 city-owned playgrounds were at the time o f trial re­
served for whites only, and the remainder were set aside 
for Negro use. Thirty of the 56 playgrounds and other 
facilities operated by the municipal Park Commission on 
property owned by churches, private groups, or the School 
Board were set aside for the exclusive use of whites, while 
26 were reserved for Negroes. All 12 of the municipal 
community centers were segregated, eight being available 
only to whites and four to Negroes. Only two o f the 
seven city golf courses were open to Negroes; play on 
the remaining five was limited to whites. While several 
o f these properties have been desegregated since the filing 
o f suit, the general pattern o f racial segregation in such 
public recreational facilities persists.7

The city asserted in the court below, and states here, 
that its good faith in attempting to comply with the re­
quirements o f the Constitution is not in issue, and con­
tends that gradual desegregation on a facility-by-facility 
basis is necessary to prevent interracial disturbances, vio­
lence, riots, and community confusion and turmoil. The 
compelling answer to this contention is that constitu­
tional rights may not be denied simply because of hos­
tility to their assertion or exercise. See Wright v. State 
of Georgia, ----- U. S. -----; Brown v. Board of Educa­
tion, 349 U. S. 294, 300. Cf. Taylor v. Louisiana, 370 
U. S. 154. As declared in Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 
1, 16, “ law and order are not . . .  to be preserved by 
depriving the Negro children o f their constitutional 
rights.” This is really no more than an application of 
a principle enunciated much earlier in Buchanan v. War-

7 It is not entirely clear precisely how many properties have since 
trial actually been desegregated and how many were merely changed 
from “ white-only” to “ Negro-only”  use in line with changes in neigh­
borhood racial composition.



WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS. 0

ley, 245 U. S. 60, a case dealing with a somewhat different 
form of state-ordained segregation— enforced separation 
o f Negroes and whites by neighborhood. An unanimous 
Court, in striking down the officially imposed pattern of 
racial segregation there in question, declared almost a 
half-century ago:

“ It is urged that this proposed segregation will 
promote the public peace by preventing race con­
flicts. Desirable as this is, and important as is the 
preservation o f the public peace, this aim cannot be 
accomplished by laws or ordinances which deny 
rights created or protected by the Federal Constitu­
tion.”  245 U. S., at 81.

Beyond this, however, neither the asserted fears of 
violence and tumult nor the asserted inability to preserve 
the peace were demonstrated at trial to be anything more 
than personal speculations or vague disquietudes of city 
officials. There is no indication that there had been any 
violence or meaningful disturbances when other recrea­
tional facilities had been desegregated. In fact, the only 
evidence in the record was that such prior transitions had 
been peaceful.8 The Chairman o f the Memphis Park 
Commission indicated that the city had “been singularly 
blessed by the absence of turmoil up to this time on this 
race question” ; notwithstanding the prior desegregation 
o f numerous recreational facilities, the same witness 
could point as evidence o f the unrest or turmoil which 
would assertedly occur upon complete desegregation of 
such facilities only to a number of anonymous letters and 
phone calls which he had received. The Memphis Chief 
o f Police mentioned without further description some 
“ troubles”  at the time bus service was desegregated and

8 Nor, contrary to predictions, does it appear that violence or dis­
ruption of any kind ensued upon elimination of racial barriers to use 
of certain additional facilities subsequent to trial.



10 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS.

referred to threatened violence in connection with a 
“ sit-in”  demonstration at a local store, but, beyond mak­
ing general predictions, gave no concrete indication 
of any inability o f authorities to maintain the peace. 
The only violence referred to at any park or recrea­
tional facility occurred in segregated parks and was not 
the product o f attempts at desegregation. Moreover, 
there was no factual evidence to support the bare testi­
monial speculations that authorities would be unable to 
cope successfully with any problems which in fact might 
arise or to meet the need for additional protection should 
the occasion demand.

The existing and commendable goodwill between the 
races in Memphis, to which both the District Court and 
some of the witnesses at trial made express and emphatic 
reference as in some inexplicable fashion supporting the 
need for further delay, can best be preserved and extended 
by the observance and protection, not the denial, of the 
basic constitutional rights here asserted. The best guar­
antee of civil peace is adherence to, and respect for, the 
law.

The other justifications for delay urged by the city or 
relied upon by the courts below are no more substantial, 
either legally or practically. It was, for example, asserted 
that immediate desegregation o f playgrounds and parks 
would deprive a number of children— both Negro and 
white— of recreational facilities; this contention was ap­
parently based on the premise that a number o f such 
facilities would have to be closed because o f the inade­
quacy of the “ present”  park budget to provide additional 
“ supervision” assumed to be necessary to operate unsegre­
gated playgrounds. As already noted, however, there 
is no warrant in this record for assuming that such added 
supervision would, in fact, be required, much less that 
police and recreation personnel would be unavailable to



WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS. 11

meet such needs if they should arise.9 More significantly, 
however, it is obvious that vindication o f conceded con­
stitutional rights cannot be made dependent upon any 
theory that it is less expensive to deny than to afford 
them. W e will not assume that the citizens o f Memphis 
accept the questionable premise im plicit in this argument 
or that either the resources o f the city are inadequate, or 
its government unresponsive, to the needs o f all o f its 
citizens.

In support o f its judgment, the District Court also 
pointed out that the recreational facilities available for 
Negroes were roughly proportional to their number and 
therefore presumably 'adequate * to  meet their needs.10 
W hile the record does not clearly support this, no more 
need be said than that, even if true, it reflects an imper­
missible obeisance to the now thoroughly discredited doc­
trine o f “separate but equal”  The sufficiency o f Negro 
facilities is beside the point; it is the segregation by race 
that is unconstitutional.

'Finally, the District Court defewed ruling as to the 
propriety o f ordering elimination o f raemibarriera at one 
facility, an art museum, pendffiglniti&tkm of, and deci- 
rion in, a state court action to  construe a racially restric­

* Except fo r the mention ©f-sosne -extra poBeeihfen assignee! to duty 
at the city zoo, no showing was, made even that additional super­
vision was necessary or provided at facilities wbieh had been desegre­
gated previously.

' 10 Approximately 3?% ’ o f Memphis’ 500,000 residents are Negroes; 
contrary to the apparent assumption o f the trial court, the recrea­
tional facilities available to Negroes were not at the time of trial all 
quantitatively proportional to their number and their complete or 
partial exclusion from certain other facilities evidenced a substantial 
qualitative difference. 'Moreover, there was testimony from Negro 
witnesses that they were excluded from golf courses and playgrounds 
more convenient to their placesbf residence than other like facilities 
open to them.



12 WATSON v. CITY OF MEMPHIS,

tive covenant contained in the deed o f the property to 
the city. Of course, the outcome of the state suit is 
irrelevant to whether the city may constitutionally en­
force the segregation, regardless o f the. effect which de­
segregation may have on  its title. C f. Pennsylvania v. 
Board oj Trusts., 353 U. S, 23GL In any event, there is no 
reason to believe that the restrictive provision will be 
invoked. The museum has already been, opened to  
Negroes one day a week without complaint.11

Since the city has completely failed to demonstrate any 
compelling or conviwring, .resspn requiring further delay 
m  implementing the constitutional proscription e£ segre­
gation, o f publicly owned or operated recreational facil­
ities, there is n ocau se whatsoever - to depart from  the 
generally operative and here efearly con ti«lfeg ,:| ^ sip l@  
that constitutional rights,*®..-to be promptly vindicated. 
The continued denM 'to- petitioners o f the u se-'of:eity 
facilities solely because o f their race is without war- 
m at. Under the facts in this case,tbeJ>istJ3ct Court's 
undoubted discretion in the fashioning arad iasa?#' o f 
equitable. relief, was- not -cafied'into p k y ; gather, t& am tr 
t im  judicial action was required to viadie#e, plai|i and 
present constitutional rights Today, no less than 50 
years ago, the solution to the problems growing out o f 
race relations “cannot be promoted by deprivhog eitkens 
o f their»eers^itutional right® and privileges,”  Buchanan v. 
Worley, mpra, 246' U. S., at 80-81.

The judgment below must be and is reverted and the 
cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent 
herewith.

Revermd.

11 The aty  also asserted in the District Court that delay was sup­
ported by the fact that desegregation o f the Fairgrounds would result 
is  & substantial less of revenues therefrom and would be unfair to 
contract concessionaires. This claim appears to have bees mooted 
by the intervening elimination of racial restrictions at that facility, 
seemingly without difficulty.