Brown V Board Of Education Essay

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Paving the Way to Civil Rights
Brown v. Board of Education was historically significant Supreme Court decision that set to motion many more people to speak up against racial inequality. These incidents combined led the way to the Civil Rights Movement.
Linda Brown was a black elementary school child who was denied access to attending a school in a predominately white neighborhood. She had to walk across railroad tracks and ride a bus to a school designated only for black children, yet there was a public school for white children only four blocks away from her home. “In 1950, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People asked a group of African-American parents that included Oliver Brown to attempt to enroll their children in all-white schools, with the expectation that they would be turned away.” (The Biography.com website) This was done in order to file a lawsuit on behalf of 13 families. Because Linda Brown’s last name fell first on the list of families, due to its placement in the alphabet, the …show more content…

Ferguson. Plessy v. Ferguson divided races by using separate but equal facilities. This often meant black people had different schools, different drinking fountains, and different facilities than white people. Plessy v. Ferguson made black people feel inferior. Oliver Brown joined with other plaintiffs to go to the Supreme Court with the goal of taking down the seemingly antiquated decision that had been the law since 1896. Serving as chief attorney for the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall, who at the time was head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Later in 1954, the goal of the 13 families was achieved when finally, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against segregation. “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. . ." (U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl

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799 Words | 2 Pages
Plessy v Ferguson was a landmark case taken to the United States Supreme Court. The ruling of the case was important to the jurisprudence in the United States. Homer Plessy brought the case to the Supreme Court after the Louisiana Supreme Court did not rule in his favor. The 7-1 ruling in 1896 showed the effect of the Jim Crow laws on the two different races in the nation. The Plessy v Ferguson case shaped race relations for years to come. The Supreme Court’s decision put the judicial stamp of approval on segregation and the “separate but equal” doctrine.
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2171 Words | 5 Pages
Before the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, many people accepted school segregation and, in most of the southern states, required segregation. Schools during this time were supposed to uphold the “separate but equal” standard set during the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson; however, most, if not all, of the “black” schools were not comparable to the “white” schools. The resources the “white” schools had available definitely exceed the resources given to “black” schools not only in quantity, but also in quality. Brown v. Board of Education was not the first case that assaulted the public school segregation in the south. The title of the case was shortened from Oliver Brown ET. Al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas. The official titled included reference to the other twelve cases that were started in the early 1950’s that came from South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia. The case carried Oliver Brown’s name because he was the only male parent fighting for integration. The case of Brown v. Board o...
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2443 Words | 5 Pages
Oliver Brown, father of Linda Brown decided that his third grade daughter should not have to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard just to get to the bus stop before she could even get to the separate Negro school for her area. He attempted to enroll her in the white public school only three blocks from their home, but her enrollment was denied due to her race. The browns believed this was a violation of their rights, and took their case to the courts. This wasn’t the first time that blacks found their constitutional rights violated. After the civil war, laws were passed to continue the separation of blacks and whites throughout the southern states, starting with the Jim Crow laws which officially segregated the whites from the black. It wasn’t until 1896 in Plessy vs. Ferguson that black people even began to see equality as an option. Nothing changed in the world until 1954 when the historical ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education that anything changed. Until then, all stores, restaurants, schools and public places were deemed ‘separate but equal’ through the Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling in 1896. Many cases just like the Brown vs. Board of Education were taken to the Supreme Court together in a class action suite. The world changed when nine justices made the decision to deem segregation in public schools unconstitutional.
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1492 Words | 3 Pages
The case started with a third-grader named Linda Brown. She was a black girl who lived just seen blocks away from an elementary school for white children. Despite living so close to that particular school, Linda had to walk more than a mile, and through a dangerous railroad switchyard, to get to the black elementary school in which she was enrolled. Oliver Brown, Linda's father tried to get Linda switched to the white school, but the principal of that school refuse to enroll her. After being told that his daughter could not attend the school that was closer to their home and that would be safer for Linda to get to and from, Mr. Brown went to the NAACP for help, and as it turned out, the NAACP had been looking for a case with strong enough merits that it could challenge the issue of segregation in pubic schools. The NAACP found other parents to join the suit and it then filed an injunction seeking to end segregation in the public schools in Kansas (Knappman, 1994, pg 466).
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1307 Words | 3 Pages
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704 Words | 2 Pages
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1158 Words | 3 Pages
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2324 Words | 5 Pages
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840 Words | 2 Pages
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2329 Words | 5 Pages
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3045 Words | 7 Pages
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679 Words | 2 Pages
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1275 Words | 3 Pages
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666 Words | 2 Pages
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