How Did Brown Vs the Board of Education Impact the Integration of Public Schools

How Did Brown vs The Board of Education Impact the

Integration of Public Schools

Education has been the key to success and a major part of a child's developmental growth throughout the years. Years ago it was limited to some children because of the color of their skin, so action had to be taken to protect the welfare of the children no matter their race. In the 50’s a group of brave African American citizens arranged a legal attack against the segregation of public schools and the public domain later fell in line. The attorney who was in charge of this case was Thurgood Marshall, who was also the attorney for the NAACP. According to Plessy vs Ferguson, by law it was legal for separation to be established for different black and white races. Then came the case of Brown vs The Board of Education, and the law was shown to be unjust and wrong. Segregation was not ok, segregation was wrong, all children, black or white, deserved the same education and opportunities.

According to U.S. Court Cases, segregation of blacks and whites, was a law for almost sixty years before the case of Brown vs. The Board of Education. Nevertheless, the turning point in segregation and race relations was the Brown vs. The Board of Education case. However, race conflict in the south between the blacks and whites, was far worse due to the fact that blacks were still the largest racial minority in that area. Socially they were prohibited from complete involvement in whites’ only businesses and other places of worship or public areas. Actually, numerous laws that were imposed on blacks was the segregation of public schools (U.S. Court Cases 154). However, to comprehend the laws that were being examined in the Brown vs. The Board of Education case, you have to look back to the establishment of laws and the time period when the laws were first set.

One case in particular that helped to ignite the racial conflict was the Plessy vs. Ferguson case. The case regarded a portion of Jim Crow legislation that had been passed in Louisiana in 1890. The legislation stated that The Louisiana Railway Accommodations 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 compartment to which by his race he does not belong, shall be liable to a fine of twenty five dollars or in lieu thereof to imprisonment for a period of not more than twenty days" (Tackach 22). Since this piece of legislation clearly stated that blacks and whites were to have separate accommodations, and that fines or imprisonment would be imposed if either race insisted on entering in the opposite races coach or dwelling; it was used as the backbone against allowing blacks and whites to share the same educational facilities. It was justified that as long as the accommodations were equal that it was not unconstitutional for them to be separated. The only problem was that the accommodations were not equal, not only in regards to the railway employees, but even with the education and the educational facilities provided to the children of the different races.

James Tackach, the writer of the Brown v. Board of Education, defines the first thirty years of the twentieth century as segregated, but certainly not equal, particularly in the school system. While the local and state governments spent lots of tax money for the improvement of the schools and the education received by students, the black schools only received a small portion of the monies. In 1910 southern states spent $9.45 per white child each year, while each black child only received $2.90, according to Tackach (Tackach 28). Over the course of the next six years, the monies spent per white child went up almost a dollar, while the monies each black child received went down by a cent. According to W.E.B. Du Bois’s book The Soul of Black Folk, "The Negro colleges, hurriedly founded, were inadequately equipped, illogically distributed, and varying efficiency and grade; the normal high schools were doing little more than common-school work, and the common schools were training but a third of the children who ought to be in them, and training these too often poorly” (Tackach 27). Education