Davis v. Prince Edward County
Dorothy Davis, a ninth grader, was the first plaintiff listed on the complaint filed on behalf of 117 Moton students. The state reaffirmed its commitment to segregation and challenged the NAACP’s arguments about the harmful effects of segregated education.
According to the state’s expert witness, blacks were intellectually inferior to whites; it was therefore in everyone’s best interest to separate the races. The federal district court upheld segregation in Prince Edward County, and the NAACP lawyers immediately appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.