Brown v Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 was a landmark United States Supreme Court Case. The Case was about a Court that declared the state laws for separating public schools for black and white students. A sixty year proceeding in the Brown Case there were a lot of race relations in the U.S. it had been over ruled by racial segregation. The Brown Case served as an agitator for the modern civil rights movement inspiring education to improve everywhere and forming legal means of challenging segregation in all areas of societies. In the 1950’s schools were segregated by race and Linda Brown thought it was violating the Fourteenth Amendment because they had to be segregated by schools. When both of the schools had similar buildings, transportations, …show more content…
The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on the behalf of their twenty children. It was called to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The name of the plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown was a parent, a welder, an assistant pastor at his local church, and an African American. Brown’s daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school that is one mile away from Sumner Elementary , a white school that was seven blocks from her house. The case “Oliver Brown et al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was named after Oliver Brown as a legal …show more content…
Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases. All were NAACP sponsored cases, but the Kansas case was unique because the group in that there was no dispute of the segregated school’s physical plant, curriculum or staff. The lower court also observed that African American children are required to travel much farther distances than they would be required to travel could they attend a white school but also countered that the school district transports African American children to and from school free of charge and that no such service was provided to white children. In 1953, the Court heard the case but was unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in full 1953, with exceptional attention to whether the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks. The Court reargued the case at the demand of Justice Felix Frankfurter who uses reargument as stalling tactic to allow the Court to gather unanimity around Brown’s opinion that would outcast
Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education came to light in 1954 when a landmark ruling was made in Topeka, Kansas. The court made a remarkable decision when it ruled that the separate but equal system of education be abolished as it was provisioned in 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson. This is one of the defining moments in public education, African American and American history. Prior to this ruling, blacks were not allowed to attend the same schools as their white counterparts. Under this provision, the argument was that the form of education was fair and just, however, the schools in which the whites attended had better facilities.
Brown v Board of Topeka Kansas ruling During the 1950s in Topeka, Kansas children attended schools that were racially segregated. Children were seen attending school based on their skin color and were not permitted to racially mix with whites. This meant that Blacks weren't allowed to enroll in public schools that white children attended under any circumstances. All of this racial segregation advocated by the power of a legal doctrine called Separate but equal, which in terms gave assurance of equality of both races despite the separation of the two.
Before the decision is discussed, the background for the case must be explained. “In the 1950’s, Linda Brown was a young African American girl in Kansas who had to walk through a railroad switchyard to get to school. There was a school much closer to her house, but she could not go there because it was an all white school. (Background Summary)” This was a very effective motivator for Mr. Brown, as he felt that his child was being discriminated against and put in danger because she was forced to go to a specific school.
WaiTo Wong Polsc 1 Prof. Uranga 8/7/2014 Was Brown v Board decided correctly? Back in 1950s', African American children were rejected admission to normal public schools which are attended by white children, under laws requiring or allowing segregation towards to the races. Linda Brown who is the main character in this event, she was born in Topeka, Kansas. Despite the fact she grew up in a ethnically diverse neighborhood, she was still forced to go to a school which need an hour time to reach instead of going to a school which was four blocks away from her house. Back at that time Topeka's schools are being segregated by races.
In 1950’s many lawsuits were filed in Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia on the same struggle of African American elementary school students who attended segregated schools. Despite differing somewhat in the details, all alleged a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Brown v. Board of education is a case based off of segregation that ties all the way back to the Jim Crow laws which were used from the years of 1880 through the 1960s. The Jim Crow laws allowed states to write up punishment for people who associate with other races. For example, on busses in Alabama a law was made stating that there must be a separation of waiting space and ticket booths for different races. On the railroads the conductors were required to direct the people of color to separate divided parts of the train. Intermarriage, or the marriage of people of different races, was prohibited in mostly every state.
Between the years 1954 and 1968, an extremely influential era occurred, known as the African American Civil Rights Movement. During this time, African Americans fought for the equal rights and freedoms they deserved. The widely recognized, Brown v. Board of Education case, which transpired in Topeka, Kansas in 1954, addressed the segregation issues between whites and African Americans in public schools. Similarly, the New Rochelle Board of Education was challenged with a court-ordered case involving the desegregation of the Lincoln School in 1962. The case, Taylor v. Board of Education of City School District of City of New Rochelle, evolved when eleven children sued the district for gerrymandering the elementary schools.
The court had reviewed information on why schools were not “substantially” equal to one another. Showing multiple studies on how students in segregated schools had “dangerous inferiority complexes” (pbs.org, Brown v Board), and that they should not be limited to their learning experience. The Supreme Court heard and ruled that “separate was not equal” (history.com, Brown v Board), and therefore made it unconstitutional, violating the 14th amendment.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) Wentzel, 3 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka: School Segregation Lydia Wentzel Liberty High School AP U.S. Government 4A Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a very popular case at the time and still is today. The case was decided by the Warren Court, and it addressed the ethics of racial segregation being practiced in schools. The court ruled?that ?separate but equal? was unconstitutional and declared it went against the Equal Rights Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
He stated that Topeka's racial segregation conflicted the Constitution's “Equal Protection Clause” The federal court did not concur with Brown, hence this led Mr. Brown to seek equality on a national level, which further leads Brown to address his case to the U.S Supreme Court. The U.S Supreme Court concluded that “separate but equal” was not a justifiable clause in regards to
Education Cases later on. In 1951, a suit was filed against the Board of Education in the City of Topeka, Kansas. This suit insisted the Board of Education to reverse its segregation policies. Thirteen parents and their 20 children were the plaintiffs in this court case. Colored kids, were required to travel a longer distance to get to school that whites in the area.
Allison Dyer Mrs. Cox American Studies 3-4 17 February 2016 Exterminating Segregation Once and for All On May 17, 1954, a decision made that would change lives. Some people thought this day would never come, but segregation in public schools was announced unconstitutional. The court case was named after Oliver Brown, whose daughter had to face a long commute just to go to a school of her color.
Brown V. Board of Education Brown V. Board of education occurred in 1954 in the city of Topeka, Kansas when racial segregation was considered normal and equal among black and white children in the school system. Most public schools believed in the separate but equal clause that was set into motion by the Plessy V. Ferguson case that went to court in 1896 when Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car (“Brown v. Board”, para.1). Plessy later went to court stating that it violated his constitutional rights with the 14th amendment, which was supposed to give equal rights and protection to all former slaves after the Civil War (“Brown v. Board”, para. 2 ). Most white people in the 1950’s had different attitudes towards race in American society
“The Brown decision annihilated the ‘separate but equal’ rule previously sanctioned by the supreme court in 1896 that permitted school districts to have ‘white schools’ and ‘colored only’ schools” (Rothstein). The amount of schools that were segregated did not have to equal the amount that were not segregated. In Topeka there was a total of four schools that were “colored” schools. The case concluded on May 17, 1954 making it unconstitutional to have segregation between schools. Brown v. the Board was leverage for the civil rights movement which began in the 50s.
Brown’s motivation for filing against the Board stemmed from his desire for his daughter to attend the school only four blocks from their home. However, Kansas Laws required African American children to attend different school than their peers of other racial backgrounds. In attempt to stand up for the equal rights for all children, “Brown joined with other African American families to engage the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP; a prominent civil rights organization) to file a lawsuit against the board of education of Topeka” (Moore, GVRL). As a result, Brown showed that not only did he want to desegregate the school system, but that people in African American community were willing to fight for equality. This is shown due to the fact that the NAACP was involved in the filings of this lawsuit, and multiple other African American families were also a part of this