The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr., Volume VVolume V of The Papers of Clarence Mitchell Jr. records the successful effort to pass the 1957 Civil Rights Act: the first federal civil rights legislation since 1875. Prior to the US Supreme Courts landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the NAACP had faced an impenetrable wall of opposition from southerners in Congress. Basing their assertions on the courts 1896 separate but equal decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, legislators from the