Student Essay on Brown Vs Board of Education

Brown Versus The Board of Education

The Brown versus Board of Education decision was an immense influence on desegregation of schools and a milestone in the movement for equality between the blacks and whites that continues today. The Brown versus Board of Education case was not the first of its type. Since the early 50's, five separate cases were filed dealing with the desegregation of schools. In all but one of these cases, the schools for whites were finer than the schools for the blacks. The black people argued that this situation was not right and unconstitutional (Dudley, 1).

When the civil war ended in 1865, Congress passed the 14th amendment that stated that all people born in the United States are considered citizens. The 14th amendment also states that individual states cannot make laws to take away a person's right to life, liberty, or property. Segregation laws made it legal to keep races apart as long as each race had its access to equal facilities, which was known as "separate but equal." This gave hope to some black parents that their son or daughter could get an equal education. One of the first lawsuits was in 1849 because five year old, Sara Roberts, had to walk past five Boston Elementary schools for whites only to get to the school she could attend. Sara's father filed a lawsuit against Boston, which was ruled that Boston had the right to segregate schools, and he had lost his case. However, in 1855, a law to end segregation in public schools was passed in Boston (Good, 26).

Another suit was filed in 1896 when Homer Plessy, an African American, boarded a train in the front. The conductor told Homer to move to the back and when he refused and was arrested. "In court Plessy argued that the railroad companies didn't have the right to segregate their cars because segregation was violation of his 14th amendments (Good, 11)." His case went to the Supreme Court where the ruling was that segregation is legal as long as both areas were equal.

In 1911, a group of activists decided to form a group to fight for equality. This group became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the NAACP. In 1939 the NAACP set up a branch called the Legal Defense Fund, which worked to end segregation through legal actions. (Good, 16) The LDF took many cases to the Supreme Courts where most rulings were for the NAACP due to the unequal facilities between white and black schools. In 1952, the NAACP had three cases in the Supreme Court, which was rescheduled, to be heard a second time in 1953. By 1953 two more cases had been added and the 5 cases were known as Brown v. Board of Education. These five cases were: Bulah v. Gebhard, Davis v. Prince Edward County, Briggs v. Elliot, Brown v. Board of Education, and Bolling v. Sharpe (Good, 4).

Linda Carol Brown was eight years old in the summer of 1950 when her father was told that Linda wouldn't be able to attend the Sumner Elementary School, in Topeka Kansas, due to her race. When finding this out Reverend Brown, Linda's father teamed up with other black families and sought help from the NAACP. They tried to appeal to the school board, but it didn't help. On February 28th of 1951 the battle begun when Reverend Brown filed his suit in the United States District Court as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Dudley, 6).

At the time, there were 14 states that were not allowed to have desegregated schools. Kansas was one of the four that gave individual cities the choice of having integrated schools (Fireside, 11). In segregated states, the state appointed much more money to the all white school rather than evenly dispersing between other schools. An example was in Clarendon County, SC, where the county spent 43 dollars on every black student compared to 179 on every white student per year. Black schools were very primitive in many areas. In most black schools there was no indoor bathroom, blackboard, or playgrounds. The schools were very over crowed and often one teacher would be assigned to 40 or more students at once (Patterson, 11). Blacks only went to school for 6 months out of the year because they were expected to plant and harvest fields (Patterson, 10). In some schools, black students were only allowed to go 3 hours a day due to double sessions because of the amount of students assigned to one school. In 1949-50 there was an average of 36.2 blacks per classroom compared to 22.6 white people per classroom. (Patterson, 11) Many black students were forced to walk past white schools that were closer, while white students rode buses to the closest school. This led to many lawsuits that eventually led up to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Finally, on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education was unanimous, ruling that "separate but equal is inherently unequal." They ruled that no state had the power to pass a law that went against the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution. Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the decision, his first as a Supreme Court justice. This ruling ended legal segregation, but was not accepted right away. Since there was no deadline, it took several cities and states years to integrate schools. Many states fought integration and nine representatives from nine southern states signed the "Southern Manifesto" stating that these states would not accept the ruling and would fight to overturn the ruling (Good, 24).

Due to the continuous fight for desegregation from Brown v. Board of Education to Martin Luther Jr.'s dream of equality in 1963 to Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, the people in the United States go to school together, work together, and live together, making the United States a better place to live.

Dudley, Mark. Brown v. Board of Education (1954). New York: Twenty-First Century

Books, 1994.

Fireside, Harvey and Sarah Fuller. Brown v. Board of Education, Equal Schooling For All. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers Inc., 1994.

Patterson, James. Brown v. Board of Education, A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Good, Diane. Brown v. Board of Education, Cornerstones of Freedom. Canada: Scholastic Inc., 2004.

Tushnet, Mark. Brown v. Board of Education : The Battle. United States. Mark Tushnet, 1995.