Brown vs. The Board of Education

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Brown vs. The Board of Education

Education has long been regarded as a valuable asset for all of America's youth. Yet, when this benefit is denied to a specific group, measures must be taken to protect its educational right. In the 1950's, a courageous group of activists launched a legal attack on segregation in schools. At the head of this attack was NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall; his legal strategies would contribute greatly to the dissolution of educational segregation.

According to U.S. Court Cases the segregaition among whites and blacks was a legal law established for almost sixty years in the United States. However, Brown vs. The Board of Education was the turning point in race relations. Still, most of the conflict between whites and blacks would be in the south. Because they where the largest racial minority, they were subject to laws and customs which prevented from ful participation in social life. As a matter of fact, many of the laws imposed on black were that of segregation in public schools.(U.S. Court Cases 154)

Yet, to understand the laws that were being questioned in the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education, one must look back to the beginning; to when laws were first set to limit the lives of African Americans. The one case that fueled that battle was Plessy vs. Ferguson. According to Tackach, this case concerned a piece of Jim Crow legislation that had been enacted in Louisiana in 1890. The Louisiana Railway Accommodaitions Act required all railway companies operating to:

"...provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races, by providing separate coaches or compartments so as to secure separate accommodations... insisting on going into a coach or compa...

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...ion, it deprived segregationist practices of their moral legitimacy as well. It was therefore perhaps the single most improtant moment of the decade... that helped the tumultuous era just arriving."

(Tackach 9)

Bibliography:

Editors Of Salem Press. U.S. Court Cases. Hackensack, New Jersey: Salem Press Inc., 1999

Haskins, James. Seperate, But Not Equal. New York: Scholastic Press, 1998

Knappman, Edward W. Great American Trial. New England Publishing Associates, Inc., 1994

Kraft, Betsy Harvey. Sensational Trails of the 20th Century. New York: Scholastic Press, 1998

Tackach, James. Brown v. Board of Education. San Diego, CA: Lucent Books, 1998

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: Modern Language Association Of America, 1995

Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976

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