Brown V. Board

 Brown V. Board

Overview:

    Brown V. Board of Education was a monumental Supreme Court case in 1954 in which the court ruled that racial segregation of students in public schools was deemed unconstitutional.  This court case was a focal point in the civil rights movement that helped establish that the  "separate but equal" doctrine was in fact flawed and not tightly enforced.  With the Plessy V. Ferguson case in 1896, the court stated that segregated facilities were legal as long as each facility for both black and whites were "equal". This would open up one of Americas' worst eras in our countries history, the Jim Crow laws, which established the "separate but equal" doctrine which prohibited blacks from sharing buses, schools, and any public facilities as whites.

Brown's case:

     In the early 1950s, the NACCP was pushing to fight against the segregation laws put on public schools, and little did they know that when when a little girl from Topeka, Kansas, was denied entrance to an all-white elementary school, this case would change Americas history forever. In 1951, Oliver Brown filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education when his daughter, Linda Brown was denied entrance to an elementary school. In the lawsuit, Brown claimed that the schools for blacks were not equal and as well maintained as the white schools, therefore violating the "equal protection clause", Brown also stated that these laws violated black Americans 14th Amendment, which states that no state can deny a person equal protection of the laws. When Brown's case was brought before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, the court sided with Brown, stating that segregation in public schools had a negative impact on colored children and would make them feel as if they are inferior or worth less compared to a white child. When four other cases related to segregation of the school system was brought forth, the Court combined all into one, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

   

The Board Of Education's case:

    Segregation at the time was deemed the "social norm", thus making segregation in schools no different from the segregation of buses and public facilities. When Linda Brown tried to be enrolled into Topekas all-white elementary school, the board took it as an insult, making it really clear to Brown that the elementary school is for whites only and there are schools for those of color. The board tried making the claim that the "equal protection clause" made it to where all children would have equal opportunists in the classroom and have all the same essentials available for their education. This however, was never enforced as the board didn't care for the black schools, as long as they were segregated, that's all that mattered to them.

Brown V. The Board Verdict:

    
The Court in the beginning, was at a split decision, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson being the strong advocate of the Plessy verdict. However, on May 17, 1954, the Court acknowledged that "separate but equal doctrine" doesn't have a place in education, and segregated schools were in fact not equal. As a result, the Court would deprive of the equal protection laws and guarantee the 14th Amendment.