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Brown v. Board of Education
6 articles on Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Source: Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition
Word Count: 1937 Includes: BibliographyUnited States Supreme Court decision that ended the “separate but equal” doctrine that allowed racial segregation. On May 17, 1954, in the case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court ended federally sanctioned racial segregation in public schools by ruling unanimously that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and have “no place in the field of education.” A groundbreaking case, Brown not only began the process of overturning Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had declared “separate but equal” public facilities constitutional, but also provided the legal foundation of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Brownwas a revolutionary decision, but it was also the culmination of a long series of changes both in the Court and in the strategies of integration's most ...
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Source: The Oxford Companion to United States History
Word Count: 1148(1954), U.S. Supreme Court decision holding racially segregated schools unconstitutional. Linda Brown, a black elementary-school student in Topeka, Kansas, could not attend classes near her home because state law mandated racial separation in public schools. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1951 filed suit in federal court on behalf of Brown and several other plaintiffs, seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of racially segregated schools. The NAACP had decided to test the prevailing legal doctrine that racially segregated schooling did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if equal resources were provided to blacks and whites. This doctrine, embodied in the Supreme Court's 1896 Plessy v. Fergusondecision, ...
Read full articleBrown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954); 349 U.S. 294 (1955)
Source: The Oxford Companion to American Law
Word Count: 628Brown v. Board Education is generally considered one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century, and perhaps of all time. It is a symbol of America’s commitment to racial equality and constitutional rights (see race and ethnicity). Brown dealt with racial segregation of public schools. The plaintiffs were represented by the NAACP and its lead attorney and later the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.On 17 May 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warrendelivered the unanimous opinion of the Court, holding racial segregation of public schools unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren’s opinion made four main arguments. First, he wrote that the history of the Fourteenth Amendment was “inconclusive” as to the intent of the framers regarding school segregation. Second, Warren rejected earlier decisions upholding segregation, stressing that the Constitution must be interpreted ...
Read full articleBrown v. Board of Education (1954)
Word Count: 2535While the first challenge to segregation in the public schools was brought by an African American father in 1849 in the case of Roberts v. City of Boston, little progress was made for almost a century. In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled, in a case concerning transportation, that “separate but equal” accommodations fulfilled constitutional requirements, and that precept was applied to education as well. Then the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) decided to launch a legal war against all forms of discrimination, choosing to focus on public schools. Under the guidance of Charles Hamilton Houston, a team of lawyers that included Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley began to bring a variety of suits during the late 1940s, charging that the separate education provided to African Americans was not, in fact, equal. The team won a number of victories, but had not yet proved that separate ...
Read full articleBrown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas (1951)
Word Count: 2716In the history of the United States few, if any, Supreme Court decisions have had the far-reaching and transformative effect of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). That case, which had the effect of legally prohibiting (if not ending) racial segregation in America's public schools, was in fact five cases bundled under the familiar heading of Brown: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas; Briggs v. Elliott; Davis v. County School Board; Gebhart v. Belton; and Bolling v. Sharpe. Except for Gebhart, each of these was an appeal of a lower-court decision validating the “separate but equal” policies of state school boards. In the first case, Brown v. Board of Education, a legal challenge was mounted by Oliver Brown and a number of otherUnited ...
Read full articleBrown v. Board of Education, Supplemental Ruling (1955)
Word Count: 1208While the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) declared racial segregation in the public schools to be unconstitutional, it was immediately clear that another step needed to be taken and another question be answered. How exactly should the vast structure of discrimination in education be dismantled? The following year, the Court issued a supplemental ruling that attempted to answer that question. Its decision was that different methods would be appropriate for different locales and situations, but it also required states to become fully compliant with the Brown ruling “with all deliberate speed.” That did not happen: movement toward desegregation was minimal and slow. In many cases any attempt to comply with the Brownruling wasThese ...
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