Segregation: Brown Vs. Board Of Education

If asked whether or not schools today are segregated, the majority of American citizens would quickly interject that they are not. In accordance with the law, the majority of American citizens would be correct. Though schools are no longer segregated in the sense that they were 64 years ago prior to the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954, schools are still dealing with a new type of segregation. This new type of segregation is referred to as “de facto”. In spite of the fact that de facto segregation has been caused by many events both in and out of the government’s control, based on evidence, there is no denying the fact that black students are both living and being educated in a segregated society. Due to low-income neighborhoods

This realization is key in realizing both what de facto segregation is and how segregation itself began in America. Twenty slaves were brought from Africa to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. These twenty were the first slaves in America. From this point on until President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, slaves were used as free labor by white landowners: working in their fields and homes. Slavery was not abolished officially until the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution was ratified in 1865. Three years later, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified and former slaves were granted the rights of citizenship and equal protection under the law. Two years after that, they were granted the right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment. When examining the history of slavery and its abolishment, it is easy to see why schools were segregated until

In Brown v. Board of Education, Oliver Brown filed a lawsuit against the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education in 1951 after his daughter was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools. Brown claimed that schools for black children were not equal to the white schools and that segregation violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. One year later, in Brown II, the Supreme Court ruled that all schools were required to desegregate. Regrettably, nearly 64 years after this ruling, many school districts who desegregated were once again segregated and haven’t desegregated since (Jackson 55). Over time, it became clear that it would take more than one ruling to reverse centuries of