...1960’s Schools were segregated between races. An eight-year old black girl named Linda Carol Brown, was denied admission from an all-white school that was nearby her home. Linda was required to attend an all-black school that was distant from her house. Linda’s family then sued the Topeka Board of Education with the help of the NAACP. They argued that schools that were segregated were never going to be equal, thus made schools unconstitutional. Cases like this also happened in the states of Virginia, Delaware, and South Carolina. The court decided the separate but equal doctrine which marked the beginning of a long and hard battle to desegregate public schools. The court ruled against segregation, many areas has segregated schools that were either...
Words: 568 - Pages: 3
...The Brown v. Board of Education case had one of the greatest impacts on history. What was this exactly? In 1951, thirteen Topeka parents supporting 20 of their children filed a class action suit against the Board of Education. They wanted the board to change their policies of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education stated, “Districts should maintain different schools for black and white students in many communities.” But on May 17th, 1954 everything changed. The court stated, “Separate facilities are inherently unequal". However, after this event immediate desegregation did not take place. People still had different restaurants and restrooms. Desegregation was later accomplished after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Nevertheless, Brown...
Words: 366 - Pages: 2
...Brown v. Board of Education Case In 1619, the African slave trade extended to the Northern American Colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The White Americans forced these enslaved African Americans to do impenetrable labor, such as, pick cotton, harvest tobacco, and build railroads in harsh milieu. In addition to the slaves being subjected to these horrible working conditions, the slave masters often tortured and raped young colored women. It wasn’t until December 6, 1865 that the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”(13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)). Although this amendment abolished slavery, segregation was still a major problem in America. On May 17th, 1954, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The Brown v. Board of Education case of Topeka, Kansas influenced the path of...
Words: 1188 - Pages: 5
...were many legal cases regarding segregation leading up to the Civil Rights Movement. One of the cases that caught people’s attention was Brown v. Board of Education. In order to understand this case we need to go back to Kansas in 1951. At the time Kansas stood apart from states in the South because segregation wasn’t really statewide. Instead Kansas gave cities with large populations of around 15,000 the ability to segregate their schools. Due to a Kansas Supreme Court decision in 1941 Topeka High School and several junior high schools were integrated because the Court found segregation unfair. By 1950 there were already 11 cases that challenged segregation in Kansas. McKinley Burnett the head of the NAACP Topeka chapter decided to file a 12th case in hopes that they could persuade Kansas to fully integrate the school system....
Words: 650 - Pages: 3
...Did you know that until 1954 schools in America weren't allowing African American citizens to attend schools with white students? It's true a little girl named Linda Brown had to walk more than 2 miles to go to a segregated school. Until the Brown v. Board of Education case came. People were standing in line like it was Black Friday to be apart of that amazing change in history. Racism is when one group of people is treated less fairly than others because of their race. After the Civil War African Americans were granted freedom, however, that didn't pass by most people in the country. They would make sure these freed slaves and their children couldn't participate in elections. They also had to use separate bathrooms, drinking fountains, schools,...
Words: 362 - Pages: 2
...The Brown v. Board of Education case was long ago, but the argument remains that minorities in the teaching profession still do not match the percentages of minority students in the chairs. There are many compounding factors that have also contributed to the minority teacher shortage. Seven additional reasons for the limited presence and dwindling supply of minority teachers in the classroom has been attributed to: minority teacher candidates’ low scores on competency tests, a decline in the number of minority students graduating college overall, the disproportionate failure to meet revised certification requirements, the decreasing amount of financial aid available to teacher education students, declining teacher salaries, and minority teachers...
Words: 1545 - Pages: 7
...The Case of Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka By Tahjia Roberts, The New York Times TOPEKA, KS — This is a landmark case in the United States Supreme Court that ruled that it was unconstitutional to have separate public schools for blacks and whites. Black students were concerned being denied the right to attend schools with white students under some laws that required and or permitted segregation by race. School segregation violated the fourteenth amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. This case was argued on December 9,1952. It overturned some previous ruling, one of the main ones being Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Plessy v. Ferguson ruled that if separate races are treated equal, segregation did not violate the fourteenth...
Words: 451 - Pages: 2
...Brown v. Board of Education In 1954, the Supreme Court decided that segregation in school violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Equal Protection Clause protects citizens from several forms of discrimination particularly race and gender. In Brown v. Board of Education, the court argued over whether or not segregation in schools was a violation of this clause. The uproar and division this court case caused was unthinkable. The whole country had its own opinion on the issue. Even with much pressure from white men and women, the Supreme Court fulfilled its duty and ruled a just and true verdict. The Court decided that segregation of black and white children in school was a violation of the Equal Rights Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Basically, this clause states that the state must treat one citizen exactly the same as it would any other citizen in the same type of situation....
Words: 478 - Pages: 2
...Brown v. Board of Education: A Historic Court Case For a large part of the 1900’s, racial segregation could be seen in almost all public places. This included the public schools system. For years, black children had to go to separate schools because of the color of their skin. This began to change in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Linda Brown and her younger sister were two black children who lived in Topeka, Kansas. Their all-black school was several miles away, and each day, they had to walk through a dangerous railroad switchyard to get to their bus stop. There was another school that was closer to their house and...
Words: 613 - Pages: 3
...Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education In the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court decided that having ”separate but equal” accommodations for Whites and Colored did not violate the 14th Amendment (Wolff, 1997). This allowed states to continue segregation as they saw fit. The Plessy v. Ferguson case was centered on the segregation of railroad cars but the final ruling supported that all “separate but equal” accommodations were allowed by the constitution and was therefore allowed in restaurants, busses, and even schools. In 1954 the Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal” was not acceptable in the case of Brown v. the Topeka Board of Education. They determined that segregation went against the 14th Amendment (Wolff, 1997). This class action suit was filed by 13 parents for their 20 children. The plaintiff named was Oliver L. Brown, the father of third grader Linda who had walk six blocks to get to her school bus stop for her segregated school one mile away even though there was a school only seven blocks away from her home ("Brown V. Board Of Education", ). Although there were several cases fighting for similar things at the time this case is the most well-known. This class action suit was originally filed in 1951 even though the final decision was not made until 1954. The Supreme Court heard the case several times in 1953, paying special attention to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and whether or not it prohibited...
Words: 671 - Pages: 3
...Brown v. Board of Education Ronald Still Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Brown v. Board of Education Background The Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education dates back to 1954, the case was centered on the Fourteenth Amendment and challenged the segregation of schools solely on the basis of race. The Brown case was not the only case of its time involving school segregation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was leading the push to desegregate public schools in the United States (Gold, 2005). Brown v. Board of Education was a consolidation of four cases that had made their way through the court system. It was 1950 and Linda brown was just seven years old, she lived in Topeka, Kansas and was African American descent (she was black). Each mourning Linda traveled 21 blocks and crossed through a dangerous railroad yard to get to school. Her journey to school took an hour and twenty minutes. White children who lived in the same neighborhood only traveled 7 blocks in a considerably less amount of time (Gold, 2005). Linda’s father Oliver filed a lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education arguing that he wanted the same conditions for his daughter (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 2009). The case was heard by three judges in Federal District Court, and they ruled against the plaintiffs, the case went to Circuit Court of Appeals and then to the U.S Supreme Court (Topeka, Kansas: Segregation in the Heartland). ...
Words: 1762 - Pages: 8
...Brown V Board Of Education May 17, 1954 was a date that had an impact on the board of education and our lives. There was an African American girl named Linda Brown, she was a normal girl in the third grade. Linda went to a school that was a mile away even though there was an all white elementary school, seven blocks away. Her father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school, but the principal of the school refused to let her in due to her race. Mr. Brown then took this problem to the NAACP ( National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), they agreed to help him. As this case became more known it was then later brought up to supreme court. Other cases have led up to this case, these cases included, Sweat v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education (1950). The cases leading up to Brown Vs Board of Education featured African American people dealing with segregation problems. Brown argued segregation is seen as antithetical to our whole culture. If a particular class of people are forced to stay in their own neighborhoods, have their own schools, parks, stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and not welcome in 'mainstream' places, they are not equal as citizens. This is a violation of the 'equality' provisions of the 14th amendment. One of the most basic founding principles of the US is that we have only one class of citizenship, every citizen is entitled to exactly the same rights and privileges of citizenship...
Words: 494 - Pages: 2
...Everything began with a third-grader student named Linda Brown who was an African American and had to walk a mile to get to a colored school, while she lived about seven block away from an all-white school. This commanded the awakening of a nation to combat segregation. According to the book “American Government roots and reform”, explains that Brown v. Board of education (1954) case consisted on the U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation is inherently unconstitutional because it violates the fourteen Amendment ‘s that guarantee equal protection.” This shows that African American kids were discriminated as well their rights were violated. Furthermore, the article “Land mark: Brown v. Board of education “ explains that in reality Brown v. Board of education consisted on five lawsuits against school district in Kansas, Virginia and the district of Columbia involving public schools system that mandates separate schools from blacks and whites. While the cases were different in nature, however they made the same claim: separate is not equal. Arguing the case before the Supreme Court were, for the Petitioners who were predominantly parents of student of color. They claimed that their children were not receiving an equal education. According to the article “Brown v. board of education,” “The district court found that the facilities provided for colored students were largely equal to those provided to white student. Reasoning that it was required to follow U.S. Supreme...
Words: 746 - Pages: 3
...Professor Course Date Brown vs. Board of Education The Brown vs. Board of Education case was a colossal influence on desegregation of schools in the United States of America. It created a milestone of equal opportunities in schools among the blacks and whites. The ruling of this case took place in 1954 and it ruled in favor of Mr. Brown. It is among one of the important cases ever heard on racial prejudice in the American history. The Brown vs. Board of Education case is about a young third grader girl in Kansas, Topeka city named Linda Brown (Dudley 48). Linda was subjected to trekking one mile through a railway switchyard daily in order to reach her black elementary school despite there being a white school seven blocks away from her home. Browns father attempted to find a chance in the white school to get her enrolled there since the black elementary school was far from home but the principal of the white school rejected Linda’s enrollment because she was black and the school was a white school. Mr. Brown and other parents reported the incident to the head of Topeka’s National Association for Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The head of NAACP Mr. McKinley Burnett had really waited for such an opportunity so as to challenge racial segregation problem in court as segregation cases were very rampant in the United States schools. This was the right opportunity as Mr. Burnett and NAACP took legal action by taking the case to the District court. Brown lost the case to the state but...
Words: 1494 - Pages: 6
...The Road to Brown tells the story of the millions of nameless blacks who faced devastating hardships caused by Jim Crow, which simply robbed them of the rights granted by the 14th and 15th Amendments. Under the "separate but equal" doctrine of the Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, black citizens were denied the right to vote, to attend white schools, to be buried in white cemeteries, etc. Those who objected were liable to be lynched. The era of Jim Crow provoked men such as, Charles Houston to fight back for those who were unable. Charles Hamilton Houston, "the man who killed Jim Crow”, grew up during the Jim Crow Era and devoted his entire life trying to destroy it. Houston came from a privileged background in regards to blacks. He finished top of his class in high school preparing him for a prosperous college career. Unfortunately, before Houston had the chance to attend college, he served in a segregated regiment during World War I. During this time Houston wrote about the hate he constantly faced from his fellow countrymen due to his race and promised himself he would study law to fix the lack of justice, changing the situation for his people. In 1920, he entered Harvard law school where he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. Later, Houston would become dean of Howard University Law School and chief counsel to the NAACP. He also presented a number of supporting cases leading up to Brown v. Board of Education. Houston strategically...
Words: 1104 - Pages: 5
