The Road to Brown Reflection Paper

In 1954 the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. During the 1950s, "...civil rights groups set up legal and political,

In 1951 schools were separated by skin color, or segregated. The Brown v. Board of Education trial was brought to court because a third-grader, Linda Brown, was not allowed to attend the elementary school that was closest to her house. She wa required to take the bus to school across town instead. In the trial the point that “Education for Negroes is almost nonexistent(13).” This is an example of how there were old problems in the Fourteenth Amendment that needed to be changed. Another issue that was brought up in the trial was that, “Segregation… has a tendency to retard the educational and mental development of negro children…(19).” Without the proper education at segregated

African Americans were never treated the same as other Americans. One day a black man who looked white named Homer Plessy got sick of sitting in a Jim Crow car so he decided to purchase a first class ticket in the white’s only section on the train. Plessy told the conductor that he was 1/8 black and he refused to move from the car. Removed from the train Plessy was in jail overnight and was released on a 500 dollar bond. Homer Plessy protested that his 13th and his 14th amendments rights were violated. This case became known as Plessy v. Ferguson. This case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Since Painter could not come to a clear and definite decision, he wrote a letter to the Attorney General requesting his opinion on the issue at hand (Cantu). Painter stated that "This applicant is a citizen of Texas and duly qualified for admission into the Law School at the University of Texas, save and except for the fact that he is a Negro." ("Oyez,Oyez”). After receiving the Attorney General’s advice, Painter informed the hopeful Sweatt that his admission was denied on the grounds that Texas banned integrated schools (Cantu). As one could imagine, Sweat became infuriated with Painter’s decision and began to brainstorm on how to make his situation as publicized as possible. Sweatt, with the assistance of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, filed a law suit against the University of Texas. The first ruling in the state court was that the university had six months to instill an equal course of law for African Americans (Burns). At the time, many of the States in the U.S. still strongly supported the idea established by the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson that schools should be separate but equal.

This U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education was a landmark case regarding the issue of segregation in public schools. The decision was in favor of desegregation of schools, deeming state laws allowing the separate public schools for white and black students to be

We all know of the famous trial that happen on May 17, 1954, a trial that ended all segregation in school districts all over the United States of America. With this law being enforce by the 14th amendment, it change the whole nation, colored people were now being allowed to enter into real academic schools, and compete for a better future. Of course I am talking about the Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, better known as

The 1960s had arrived, and equality in theory was being achieved, but it was still not being practiced in reality. As mentioned earlier in Sweatt v. Painter, various leaders such as Antonio Maceo Smith, Carter Wesley, and John J. Jones sued the University of Texas because of the denial of admission to Texas Law School. The Supreme Court ruled that Sweatt can attend the University of Texas, which meant integration. It was in ways similar to Brown v. Board where they ruled segregated schools were unequal, which led to being unconstitutional.

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States was confronted with the controversial Brown v. Board of Education case that challenged segregation in public education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case because it called into question the morality and legality of racial segregation in public schools, a long-standing tradition in the Jim Crow South, and threatened to have monumental and everlasting implications for blacks and whites in America. The Brown v. Board of Education case is often noted for initiating racial integration and launching the civil rights movement. In 1951, Oliver L. Brown, his wife Darlene, and eleven other African American parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education

Monday, May 17, 1954 was the day in which the education system was changed and racism started making a turn for the best. The case that helped this movement was Brown v. Board of Education and is know today as one of the greatest Supreme Court decision of the 20th century. It all started when the plaintiff Oliver Brown a parent of one of the student who were denied admission to a white school in Topeka, Kansas. Brown argued that by not allowing his daughter into the school was a violation to the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. The clause states that both white and black schools should be equal. On those terms the federal district court dismissed the claim, on terms that the black schools were substantially equal enough to meet the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Brown

With all that said and done, segregation continued on until 1954 when the legendary Brown vs. Board of Education court case was brought to light. In this case five different representatives were brought to argue their case to the Supreme Court about how segregation should not be legal within schools. This class-action lawsuit was filed by the NAACP, the National

Another win for African Americans was in 1954, with the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, where the Supreme Court called segregation unconstitutional and consequently banned it. This was only the ending of a 16 year struggle for the ruling out of segregation. The abolishment of segregation in public schools did not rely exclusively on this case, but as well as on other cases which contributed to this ban. The case of Brown v. Board of Education was said to have been divided into two cases known as Brown I and Brown II. The Brown I case, was the 1954 abolishment of segregation, in 1955 Brown II, “held local school districts responsible for implementing Brown I and ordered them to desegregate schools ‘with all deliberate speed,’” (Unger). In previous years before the Brown cases, the National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP), were accountable for the pro anti-segregation cases against school boards in

Years later, in 1954, Brown v. Board was brought to light. It challenged the school boards and their policies on segregation of public schools. When taken to court, the judge ruled in favor of the school boards. Thwarted, Brown appealed to the Supreme Court with the argument that the schools systems were unequal. The Supreme Court ruled that is did in fact violate the equal protection law and Brown won.

Education was one of things that every parent wanted for their children regardless of whatever situation they were in. Public schools were segregated. In 1954 there was a lawsuit that ended legal segregation in public schools known as Brown V. Board of Education. In the fall of 1950, the NAACP sued on behalf of third-grader Linda Brown of Topeka, Kansas (Gates, 2013, p.323). Brown’s parents lived near a white school and wanted their daughter to attend that school because it was closer to their home than any other school that was around them. Thurgood Marshall was one of the lawyers for the NAACP during the time and argued that segregation condemns children, thinking that they lower than the whites that the Court had supposedly threw out in the Plessy case. The Court also heard from other families that were going through the same situation as Brown. May 17th, 1954, the Court ruled in favor of the black students. This decision allowed blacks to attend any public school that they

This inequality and unnecessary act called racism within many school systems can be dated back to 1896 to the Plessy V. Ferguson case which resulted in “separate facilities for education” and an “equal education” (Campbell). This case is what provided us with the term “separate but equal”, this meant that white and black children had to attend separate schools but would supposedly get an equal education. Another case addressing racism in education is the Cumming V. Richmond case in 1899. This case involved three black families who petitioned the court to allow their children to finish their high school education at a white high school, due to the closing of the local black high school which would integrate African Americans and whites under one facility (Campbell). Racial segregation and its unfairness even continued into the 1950’s with the Sweatt V. Painter case involving an African American, Homas Sweatt, who was being denied access to the University of Texas Law School because he was black (Campbell). All of this unfair treatment of separate but equal education continued until 1954 when one of the most popular and familiar cases to all of us occurred, “Brown V. Board of Education”. In this case a young girl from Kansas had to walk 21 blocks to the closet black only school when a

In 1954, the Brown v. Board of Education began the elimination of segregation in schools. If the Brown v. Board never happened, there would still be segregation in schools today.