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Brown V Board of Education

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Submitted By ZEZO1999
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This case was first viewed by the Supreme Court October 1, 1951. Segregating schools ment the African American students had gotten the short end of the stick. The NAACP did not argue that the facilities and funding were unfair, instead they stated it caused psychological damage. Black students felt inferior to white students and it was an obstruction to their learning. The Boards defense was the early segregation prepared them mentally for what they were to face in adulthood. They also argued that many great African Americans such as; Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver overcame segregated schools. The Board thought that segregated schools was not an issue (Cozzens). On May 17, 1954, the court came to the decision stating, "We come then to the question presented: does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does...We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment (Cozzens).”
This was a major breakthrough for the civil rights movement. Schools had officially become desegregated, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Today, the schools are in some way segregated. One way is due to the fact that parents who can afford to send their kids to a private school will. Those who can’t, send their kids to public schools. One isn’t “inferior” to the other, but this is an example of economic

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