Brown Vs. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education

The case of brown v. board of education was one of the biggest turning points for African Americans to becoming accepted into white society at the time. Brown vs. Board of education to this day remains one of, if not the most important cases that African Americans have brought to the surface for the better of the United States. Brown v. Board of Education was not simply about children and education (Silent Covenants pg 11); it was about being equal in a society that claims African Americans were treated equal, when in fact they were definitely not. This case was the starting point for many Americans to realize that separate but equal did not work. The separate but equal label did not make sense either, the circumstances were clearly not separate but equal. Brown v. Board of Education brought this out, this case was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.

The case started in Topeka, Kansas, a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school seven blocks from her house, but the principal of the school refused simply because the child was black. Brown went to McKinley Burnett, the head of Topeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help (All Deliberate Speed pg 23). The NAACP was eager to assist the Browns, as it had long wanted to challenge segregation in public schools. The NAACP was looking for a case like this because they figured if they could just expose what had really been going on in “separate but equal society” that the circumstances really were not separate but equal, bur really much more disadvantaged to the colored people, that everything would be changed. The NAACP was hoping that if they could just prove this to society that the case would uplift most of the separate but equal facilities. The hopes of this case were for much more than just the school system, the colored people wanted to get this case to the top to abolish separate but equal. With Brown's complaint, it had "the right plaintiff at the right time." The NAACP saw this as the perfect time to strike because the case really was a true showing of how separate but equal was just not what it claimed to be, Brown had no problem getting other black parents to join in on the case, and, in 1951, the NAACP requested an injunction that would forbid the segregation of Topeka's public schools.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas heard Brown's case from June 25-26, 1951. At the trial, the NAACP argued that segregated schools sent the message to black children that they were inferior to whites; therefore, the schools were inherently unequal. One of the expert witnesses, Dr. Hugh W. Speer, testified that "...if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum cannot be equal under segregation." (Brown v. Board of Education about the case” [online]). The Board of Education's defense was this, because segregation in Topeka and elsewhere pervaded many other aspects of life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood. The African American culture felt that if the children are separated from whites at such a young age, then separate but equal is setting them up to be prejudiced against in adulthood anyway. So NAACP wanted to stop this now so that in the future this segregation can stop. They wanted to completely get rid of separate but equal, so that society can integrate as a whole without worrying about race and color, but being one as a nation. This proposed a difficult decision for the courts, on one hand the judges agreed with the witnesses, one judge wrote: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children...A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn (Silent Covenants pg 22). However on the other hand, Plessy vs. Ferguson allowed separate but equal schools for black and white children, and no Supreme Court ruling had challenged that yet. But because of the precedent of Plessy vs. Ferguson, the court felt it “necessary” to rule in favor of Brown vs. Board of Education. Brown and the NAACP appealed to the Supreme Court on October 1, 1951 and their case