Share with students the following summary of the events leading up to the case of Roberts v. City of Boston as well as the events that followed it. Then in small groups assign students to read excerpts from arguments by Roberts’ lawyer, Charles Sumner and/or from the ruling of Judge Lemuel Shaw. 

Students should prepare in small groups and then in whole group discussion to:

• Identify the main arguments and the supporting evidence given by Sumner and Shaw
• Analyze if Judge Shaw’s ruling fully responded to all of Sumner’s outlined arguments. 

Benjamin Roberts was a printer and prominent figure in antislavery and social reform groups in Boston. In 1846, five-year-old Sarah Roberts had to walk directly past five primary schools to get to her assigned school, the Smith School in Boston. Her father tried on four separate occasions to enter Sarah in one of the public schools closer to her home, but each time her application for admission was rejected. This segregation was not in response to any state or city law; it was simply mandated by the Boston School Committee.

Mr. Roberts brought suit against the City of Boston to compel Sarah’s admission to one of the white primary schools closer to her home. He based his suit on a statute that provided that any child illegally excluded from a city’s public school might recover damages from the city. The case of Roberts v. The City of Boston (1849), argued for the plaintiff by Charles Sumner, with the assistance of black lawyer Robert Morris, would have a significant impact on the lives of African Americans.  Judge Lemuel Shaw  of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled against the plaintiff (the Roberts family). 

In Massachusetts, the legislature later reversed course when in 1855, a law was passed that stated that “no person shall be excluded from a Public School on account of race, color, or religion opinions.” . However, the larger damage was done through precedent, as in1896, United States Supreme Court justices used the decision of Judge Shaw as a basis for their ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. This ruling established the “separate by equal” standard that formally legalized all manner of racial segregation laws, including those for schooling. 

For students in the upper elementary grades it is suggested that the excerpts are pared down further or read as a whole group to support understanding and vocabulary.