brown v board of education case analysis

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Course: US history   >   Unit 8

• Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement
• African American veterans and the Civil Rights Movement

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

• Emmett Till
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• "Massive Resistance" and the Little Rock Nine
• The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• SNCC and CORE
• Black Power
• The Civil Rights Movement

• In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) a unanimous Supreme Court declared that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
• The Court declared “separate” educational facilities “inherently unequal.”
• The case electrified the nation, and remains a landmark in legal history and a milestone in civil rights history.

A segregated society

The brown v. board of education case, thurgood marshall, the naacp, and the supreme court, separate is "inherently unequal", brown ii: desegregating with "all deliberate speed”, what do you think.

• James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 387.
• James T. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 25-27.
• Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 387.
• Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 32.
• See Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, and Richard Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s Struggle for Equality (New York: Knopf, 2004).
• Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education, 43-45.
• Supreme Court of the United States, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
• Patterson, Grand Expectations, 394-395.

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Legal Dictionary

The Law Dictionary for Everyone

Brown v. Board of Education

Following is the case brief for Brown v. Board of Education, United States Supreme Court, (1954)

Case Summary of Brown v. Board of Education:

• Oliver Brown was denied admission into a white school
• As a representative of a class action suit, Brown filed a claim alleging that laws permitting segregation in public schools were a violation of the 14 th Amendment equal protection clause .
• After the District Court upheld segregation using Plessy v. Ferguson as authority, Brown petitioned the United States Supreme Court.
• The Supreme Court held that segregation had a profound and detrimental effect on education and segregation deprived minority children of equal protection under the law.

Brown v. Board of Education Case Brief

Statement of Facts:

Oliver Brown and other plaintiffs were denied admission into a public school attended by white children. This was permitted under laws which allowed segregation based on race. Brown claimed that the segregation deprived minority children of equal protection under the 14 th Amendment.  Brown filed a class action, consolidating cases from Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware and Kansas against the Board of Education in a federal district court in Kansas.

Procedural History:

Brown filed suit against the Board of Education in District Court. After the District Court held in favor of the Board, Brown appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Issues and Holding:

Does the segregation on the basis of race in public schools deprive minority children of equal educational opportunities, violating the 14 th Amendment? Yes.

The Court Reversed the District Court’s decision.

Rule of Law or Legal Principle Applied:

Separating educational facilities based on racial classifications is unequal in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14 th Amendment.

The Court held that looking to historical legislation and prior cases could not yield a true meaning of the 14 th Amendment because each is inconclusive.

At the time the 14 th Amendment was enacted, almost no African American children were receiving an education. As such, trying to determine the historical intentions surrounding the 14 th Amendment is not helpful. In addition, few public schools existed at the time the amendment was adopted.

Analyzing the text of the amendment itself is necessary to determine its true meaning. The Court held the basic language of the Amendment suggests the intent to prohibit all discriminatory legislation against minorities.

Despite the fact each facility is essentially the same, the Court held it was necessary to examine the actual effect of segregation on education. Over the past few years, public education has turned into one of the most valuable public services both state and local governments have to offer. Since education has a heavy bearing on the future success of each child, the opportunity to be educated must be equal to each student.

The Court stated that the opportunity for education available to segregated minorities has a profound and detrimental effect on both their hearts and minds. Studies showed that segregated students felt less motivated, inferior and have a lower standard of performance than non-minority students. The Court explicitly overturned Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 U.S. 537 (1896), stating that segregation deprives African-American students of equal protection under the 14 th Amendment.

Concurring/ Dissenting opinion :

Unanimous decision led by Justice Warren.

Significance:

Brown v. Board of Education was the landmark case which desegregated public schools in the United States. It abolished the idea of “ separate but equal .”

Student Resources:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_brown.html https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483

Brown v. Board of Education: Annotated

The 1954 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, declared that “separate but equal” has no place in education.

The US Supreme Court’s decision in the case known colloquially as Brown v. Board of Education found that the “[t]he ‘separate but equal ’ doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537, has no place in the field of public education.” The Plessy case, decided in 1896, had found that the segregation laws which created “separate but equal” accommodations for Black Americans, specific to transportation but applicable generally, were not a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Segregation in education had been challenged throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and rulings in a number coalesced to propel Brown to the level of the Supreme Court to address segregation in all public schools.

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Below is an annotation of the opinion, with relevant scholarship covering the legal, social and education history leading up to and after the decision. As always, the supporting research is free to read and download.

The red J indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR . ____________________________________________________________________________

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954) (USSC+)

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS*

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment —even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities , even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal.

(e) The “separate but equal” doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537, has no place in the field of public education.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 US 537 . Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case , the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not “equal” and cannot be made “equal,” and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.

Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then-existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment’s history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold . Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of “separate but equal” did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the “separate but equal” doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. County Board of Education , 175 US 528 , and Gong Lum v. Rice , 275 US 78 , the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada , 305 US 337 ; Sipuel v. Oklahoma , 332 US 631; Sweatt v. Painter , 339 US 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , 339 US 637 . In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter , supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter , there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other “tangible” factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship . Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race , even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

In Sweatt v. Painter , supra, in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on “those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school.” In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , supra, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: “…his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession.” Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law , for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system .

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson , this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal . Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity . On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question—the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.

It is so ordered.

* Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9–10, 1952, reargued December 7–8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7–8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al. , on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

[Transcript available from the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/brown-v-board-of-education ]

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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits states from segregating public school students on the basis of race. This marked a reversal of the "separate but equal" doctrine from Plessy v. Ferguson that had permitted separate schools for white and colored children provided that the facilities were equal.

Based on an 1879 law, the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas operated separate elementary schools for white and African-American students in communities with more than 15,000 residents. The NAACP in Topeka sought to challenge this policy of segregation and recruited 13 Topeka parents to challenge the law on behalf of 20 children. In 1951, each of the families attempted to enroll the children in the school closest to them, which were schools designated for whites. Each child was refused admission and directed to the African-American schools, which were much further from where they lived. For example, Linda Brown, the daughter of the named plaintiff, could have attended a white school several blocks from her house but instead was required to walk some distance to a bus stop and then take the bus for a mile to an African-American school. Once the children had been refused admission to the schools designated for whites, the NAACP brought the lawsuit. They were unsuccessful at the trial court level, where the 1896 Supreme Court precedent in Plessy v. Ferguson was found to be decisive. Even though the trial court agreed that educational segregation had a negative effect on African-American children, it applied the standard of Plessy in finding that the white and African-American schools offered sufficiently equal quality of teachers, curricula, facilities, and transportation. Since the NAACP did not challenge the details of those findings, it essentially cast the appeal as a direct challenge to the system imposed by Plessy. When the Supreme Court heard the appeal, it combined Brown with four other cases addressing parallel issues in South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. The NAACP was responsible for bringing each of these lawsuits, and it had lost on each of them at the trial court level except the Delaware case of Gebhart v. Belton. Brown stood apart from the others in the group as the only case that challenged the separate but equal doctrine on its face. The others were based on assertions of gross inequality, which would have violated the standard in Plessy as well.

• Earl Warren (Author)
• Hugo Lafayette Black
• Stanley Forman Reed
• Felix Frankfurter
• William Orville Douglas
• Robert Houghwout Jackson
• Harold Hitz Burton
• Tom C. Clark
• Sherman Minton

Supreme Court opinions are rarely unanimous, and it appears that Justice Frankfurter deliberately argued for a re-hearing to stall the case while the Court built a consensus behind its decision. This was designed to prevent proponents of segregation from using dissents to build future challenges to Brown. Despite the eventual unanimity, the judges had a wide range of views. Reed and Clark were not opposed to segregation per se, while Frankfurter and Jackson were hesitant to issue a bold decision that might be difficult to enforce. (Jackson and Reed initially planned to write a dissent together.) Douglas, Black, Burton, and Minton were relatively ready to overturn Plessy from the outset, however, as was Chief Justice Warren. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's appointment of Warren to replace former Chief Justice Frederick Moore Vinson, who died in September 1953, thus may have played a crucial role in how events unfolded. Warren had supported the integration of Mexican-American children into California schools. Warren based much of his opinion on information from social science studies rather than court precedent. This was understandable because few decisions existed on which the Court could rely, yet it would draw criticism for its non-traditional approach. The decision also used language that was relatively accessible to non-lawyers because Warren felt that it was necessary for all Americans to understand its logic.

This decision ranks among the most dramatic issued by the Supreme Court, in part due to Warren's insistence that the Fourteenth Amendment gave the Court the power to end segregation even without Congressional authority. Like the use of non-legal sources to justify his reasoning, Warren's "activist" view of the Court's role remains controversial to the current day. The illegality of segregation does not, however, and a series of later decisions were implemented to try to force states to comply with Brown. Unfortunately, the reality is that this decision's vision of complete desegregation has not been achieved in many areas of the U.S., and the problems of enforcement that Jackson identified have proven difficult to solve.

U.S. Supreme Court

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954*

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. Pp. 486-496.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education. Pp. 489-490.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Pp. 492-493.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.

(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson,   163 U.S. 537 , has no place in the field of public education. P. 495.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp. 495-496.

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(h)our history lesson: bringing together the brown v. board of education case.

This short lesson was adapted by Katie McCarthy from the full-length Teaching with Historic Places lesson plan “ Brown v. Board: Five Communities that Changed America .”

Grade Level Adapted For:

This lesson is intended for middle school learners, but can easily be adapted for use by learners of all ages.

Lesson Objectives:

Students will be able to....

Describe the five cases that made up the Brown V. Board of Education Supreme Court Case.

Evaluate the importance of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Case.

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source.

Inquiry Question:

Examine the photos below. What do you see in these two pictures? What is different or similar between the two images? What do you think caused the differences?

Introduction

The decades immediately after the Civil War offered freedom and promise for African Americans. However, the South attempted to reassert the control they lost as a result of the Civil War. Southern politicians began segregating (or separating) the races in all aspects of public life. This system of segregation and discrimination was nicknamed “Jim Crow.” This system took away many of the freedoms which African Americans experienced following the Civil War.1 During the 1890s the situation for African Americans became increasingly worse throughout the South. Race relations deteriorated, violence increased, and the many advances toward integration were virtually eliminated.

In 1892, a Black man named Homer Adolf Plessy was imprisoned for refusing to use the segregated train car assigned to African Americans. By refusing to do so, he violated a Louisiana law. Through a series of appeals, his case was taken to the nation’s highest court, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities for Black and white people were constitutional as long as they were equal. The ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson allowing “separate but equal” facilities legally sanctioned segregation in the United States. The ruling denied African Americans access to many of the white facilities that had been racially integrated after the Civil War.

During the 1900s, segregated school facilities were separate but oftentimes not equal. Schools attended by African-American children generally were over-crowded and under-funded. Both materials and facilities were old and in disrepair. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) fought against the unequal schools. Five separate cases contesting inequalities in public education were considered under Oliver Brown et. al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (Brown v. Board) in 1954.2 Brown v. Board ultimately overturned the decision made in Plessy v. Ferguson.

The five school desegregation cases that the Supreme Court agreed to hear in the fall of 1952 included: Oliver Brown et al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), Briggs v. Elliot (South Carolina), Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board (Virginia), Belton v. Gebhart (Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia). The Court heard the cases under Brown v. the Board of Education and convened to hear arguments on December 9, 1952. Thurgood Marshall and other NAACP attorneys argued that segregated schools violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee to “equal protection of the laws.” Lawyers in the case from the District of Columbia charged that segregation violated students’ Fifth Amendment rights to not “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” They wanted immediate integration. The opposing side claimed that segregated schools were legal and should allowed to continue. They said that ensuring that black and white schools were equal was an acceptable compromise.

Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education was initiated in 1948, by McKinley Burnett, president of the Topeka NAACP who for a period of two years worked unsuccessfully to convince the local board of education to desegregate their elementary schools. Kansas law dealt with racial segregation in public schools only at the elementary level, where it was permitted but not required. In response, Burnett led the NAACP in organizing a class action law suit against the Topeka Board of Education, recruiting 13 families to serve as plaintiffs for the case. These parents were asked to locate segregated white-only elementary schools close to their homes and attempt enroll their children. In the fall of 1950, the plan was carried out. All were denied the right to enroll their children in these public elementary schools providing the basis for the Topeka NAACP to move forward with their law suit. On February 28,1958, their class action case was filed in Federal District Court for the District of Kansas, under the name of one of the parents becoming known as Oliver L. Brown et at vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, (Kansas) The legal citation “et al” refers to the Latin phrase “Et Alia” meaning and others. The Topeka case included the four racially segregated African American elementary schools, Buchanan, McKinley, Monroe and Washington along with eight white-only elementary schools, Clay, Gage, Lowman Hill, Lafayette, Parkdale, Quincy, Randolph and Sumner. Federal District Court ruled against the parents leading to the NAACP filing an appeal with the United States Supreme Court on October 1, 1951. On appeal the Kansas case was consolidated with litigation from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C. On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in the consolidated cases under the heading of Oliver L. Brown et al vs. the Board of Topeka, (KS) et al.

Briggs v. Elliot

Summerton High School, Summerton, South Carolina

Briggs v. Elliot focused on the inequality of education between two all-white schools and three black schools in Clarendon County School District #22. The all-white Summerton High School was described as “modern, safe, sanitary, well equipped, lighted and healthy.” The black schools were described as “inadequate…unhealthy…old and overcrowded and in a dilapidated condition.”3

In November 1949, more than 100 people petitioned the school district to address the differences in budgets, buildings, and services available for black and white students. When the petition was ignored, the local branch of the NAACP filed Briggs v. Elliot in Federal District Court. Harry Briggs, a service station attendant with school-age children, was first on the petition and the case was named after him. R. W. Elliot was the chairman of the board for the school district.

In May 1951, the court ruled against the petitioners, but told the school district to establish equal facilities for black students. The NAACP lawyers appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, however, returned the case to the district court for a second hearing. After learning that Clarendon County was committed to building more schools for Black students and improving educational services, the district court upheld its decision. In May 1952, the NAACP lawyers appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time claiming that segregation itself violated the 14th Amendment guarantee to “equal protection under the laws.”

Belton v. Gebhart, Bulah v. Gebhart

Howard High School, Wilmington, Delaware

Philanthropist Pierre S. DuPont funded the construction of dozens of schools in the early 1900s. Howard High School, located in Wilmington, was among them. Designed by a nationally known expert in school design, Howard High opened in 1929. At the time, it was the only school in Delaware to offer a complete high school education to black students.

Black students living in Claymont, Delaware, spent up to an hour each way traveling to Howard High. They were not allowed to attend the all-white Claymont High which was located right in their neighborhood. Aside from the distance, Claymont School was better equipped and less crowded. With an enrollment of several hundred students, Claymont was situated on a 13-acre campus with playing fields and a running track. Howard High School, on the other hand, had 1,274 students and was in a “congested industrial area, with no play space.”4 After seeking legal advice from NAACP lawyers in March 1951, a group of parents asked the school board to admit their children to Claymont High. When the State Board of Education refused, the parents sued the state of Delaware. The court case was filed in August 1951 as Belton v. Gebhart. The case was named after Ethel Belton who one of the parents suing, and Francis Gebhart who was part of the State Board of Education.

A second case, Bulah v. Gebhart, was brought by Sarah Bulah. Bulah had made several attempts to convince the Delaware Department of Public Instruction to provide buses for black children in the town of Hockessin. A bus for white children passed her house twice a day, but would not pick up her daughter. The Delaware court concluded that “the mental health problems created by racial segregation attributed to a lack of educational progress, and furthermore that under the separate but equal doctrine the plaintiffs had a right to send their children to the white schools.” This was the first time in the United States that a white high school and elementary school were ordered to admit black children.5 The State Attorney General immediately filed an appeal. On August 28, 1952, the Supreme Court of Delaware upheld the decision. In late November, the State Attorney General filed a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

Davis v. Prince Edward County School Board

Robert Russa Moton High School, Farmville, Virginia

Before 1939, the only secondary school education available to Black students in Prince Edward County, Virginia was a few extra grades in one elementary school.6 That year, however, a new black high school opened. As with the other 11 high schools for African Americans in Virginia, Robert Russa Moton High School had inadequate facilities. The one-story brick structure had no gymnasium, cafeteria, lockers, or auditorium with fixed seating (unlike the Farmville High School for white students). Built to accommodate 180 students, the school was overflowing with more than 400 students by 1950. Eventually, three temporary buildings were constructed to ease overcrowding. They were dubbed the “tar paper shacks” because of the flimsy material covering the wooden frameworks.

On April 23, 1951, the high-schoolers led a strike to protest the overcrowded conditions, the inadequate shacks, and the school board's unwillingness to build a new high school. After consulting with the Richmond, Virginia office of the NAACP, they decided to sue for integration and to continue the strike until the school year ended on May 7. On May 23, attorneys filed suit in the Federal District Court for the immediate integration of Prince Edward County schools. The case is named after ninth-grade student Dorothy E. Davis, the first plaintiff listed. The court’s decision in the case known as Davis v. the County School Board of Prince Edward County supported the county’s position. The U.S. District court sided with the School Board, and the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal.

Bolling v. Sharpe

John Philip Sousa Junior High School, Washington, D.C.

In the first half of the 20th century, racially segregated schools were the norm in the nation’s capital just as in other schools of the South. Unlike other school systems, however, Washington, D.C. schools depended on congressional funding. The black population in the District expanded greatly between 1930 and 1950. Overcrowding in black schools became typical.

By the fall of 1950, some frustrated parents had formed the Consolidated Parents’ Group. They were ready to legally challenge segregated schools in the District. With the help of attorney James Nabrit, professor of law at the all-black Howard University, the group decided to take a stand at the new all-white John Philip Sousa Junior High School. In a carefully planned effort, 12-year old Spottswood Bolling and 10 other black students tried to gain admission to John Philip Sousa Junior High School on September 11. The principal refused to admit the children, so they were forced to attend the all-black Shaw Junior High. Sousa Junior High was described as a “spacious glass-and-brick structure located across the street from a golf course in a solidly residential section of Southeast Washington.”7 It had 42 classrooms, a 600-seat auditorium, a double gymnasium, and a playground with several athletic courts. Shaw, on the other hand, was “forty-eight years old, dingy, ill-equipped, and located across the street from The Lucky Pawnbroker’s Exchange.”8 It had a makeshift gymnasium, and its playground was too small for a ball field.

James Nabrit filed suit on behalf of Bolling and four other plaintiffs against C. Melvin Sharpe, president of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia. Nabrit did not present evidence that the schools were inferior to the facilities for white students. Instead, the Bolling v. Sharpe case argued that segregation in itself was discrimination and violated students’ rights to due process under the Fifth Amendment. This tactic differed from the other cases, because the 14th Amendment applied to states and therefore was not applicable in the District of Columbia. The District Court Judge dismissed the case. Nabrit filed an appeal and was awaiting a hearing when the Supreme Court sent word that it was interested in considering the case along with the other four segregation cases already pending.

At the Supreme Court

The arguments for all five cases were completed by December 11, after only three days before the Court. The Supreme Court justices were divided on the proper decision and deliberated for nearly six months.9 In June 1953, instead of issuing a ruling, the Court told both sides to come back in the fall to argue whether the 14th Amendment was originally intended to apply to segregation in public schools. The Court reconvened on December 7 and finally issued its historic decision on May 17, 1954. More than half a century after Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” doctrine, the Supreme Court unanimously declared that segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment and was unconstitutional. In the Supreme Court’s opinion, Chief Justice Warren wrote,

….In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In a separate opinion for Bolling v. Sharpe, the Court stated: “In view of our decision that the Constitution prohibits the states from maintaining racially segregated public schools, it would be unthinkable that the same Constitution would impose a lesser duty on the Federal Government.”10

Reading Discussion Questions:

Which constitutional amendments did the NAACP claim segregated schools violated? What basic rights do each of these amendments protect?

What were the five cases? How did each one reach the Supreme Court?

When did the Supreme Court first convene to hear arguments? When was a ruling finally issued? Why do you think it took the Court so long to decide?

In your own words, explain the Court's rulings. Why was a separate opinion given for the Bolling v. Sharpe case?

Several of the schools involved in the five cases (and highlighted in the reading) still stand today and have been listed in the National Register of Historic Places or designated as National Historic Landmarks. The Brown V. Board of Education Historic Site is operated by the National Park Service. Do you think it is important to research, document, and recognize historic places associated with the Brown v. Board of Education decision? Explain your answer.

Each of the following activities asks learners to think creatively and analytically about the Brown v. Board of Education case and its legacy. In the first, participants research the history of segregation in their own community. In the second, learners imagine and draw what the Supreme Court looked like during the case’s trial. Educators should chose one of the following activities to complete with their participants.

Activity 1: Research Local History

The Brown v. Board of Education case was made up of five cases from around the country, demonstrating the way in which segregation marked many, if not most, school systems following the Civil War. In this activity, participants will research the history of segregation in their own community.

First, divide participants into two groups. One group will conduct research on public schools in their town or county in the period leading up to the Brown ruling. The second group will research the same schools in the several years following the Brown ruling. Participants might analyze historic newspapers, conduct oral histories, or primary source documents such as yearbooks, school board records, or court case documents.

Note: If this history has not been documented in your community, or if finding resources is challenging, you may have your students conduct this research on the five cases included in the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Questions for the first group to address include:

Were schools segregated?

How many schools (elementary and secondary) were there for Black and white students?

Were any of the schools involved in local law suits over segregation? Do any of the schools from the period remain today?

Questions for the second group include:

What was the School Board's reaction to the ruling?

What specific changes occurred as a result of Brown v. Board of Education? When did these changes take place?

Did it take additional court rulings before the school system integrated permanently?

After the research is complete, have each group explain its findings. If possible, have participants create an exhibit to display at school, the local library, or historical society. The exhibit should include historical and/or modern photographs of school buildings as well as images of students or newspaper headlines from the period. Complete the activity by discussing with students how local events can have national significance and, in turn, how national events can impact the local community.

Activity 2: Be a Courtroom Sketch Artist

Cameras aren’t allowed in the Supreme Court or in many courtrooms around the country. Instead, courtroom sketch artists draw the scene for news articles and those interested in the cases. Now, it’s your turn to draw a court case! Choose one of the five cases mentioned in this lesson, and draw what you think the courtroom looked like while it was on trial. You may choose to draw the final Supreme Court Trial. For reference images, check out the Supreme Court website , and the Library of Congress Brown V. Board of Education Online Exhibit . While you draw, consider the following points:

Who is in the courtroom?

Who are the judges hearing the case? Who are the lawyers? What are their backgrounds?

Are there people listening to the trial? What do they look like? What do they care about?

What kinds of emotions might people in the courtroom be feeling?

What point of the trial is your picture capturing?

Why do you think school segregation was an important cause of the NAACP?

How do you think the people involved in the cases felt as they went to the Supreme Court?

How did the school buildings the children attended affect their learning?

Why do you think these cases mattered at the time they were passed?

Why might these cases matter to you and your family and friends?

What kinds of questions do these cases make you want to explore more?

Footnotes: 1Quoted in Charles D. Lowery and John F. Marsalek, eds. Encyclopedia of African-American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Present (New York: Greenwood Press, 1992), 281. 2 Brown v. Board consolidated separate cases from four states. A fifth public school segregation case from Washington , DC was considered in the context of Brown , but resulted in a separate opinion. References to Brown in this lesson plan collectively refer to all five cases. 3 J. Tracy Power, “Summerton High School ” (Clarendon County , South Carolina) National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1994), 7. 4 Flavia W. Rutkosky and Robin Bodo, “Howard High School” (New Castle County, Delaware) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2004), 14. 5Ibid., 16. 6 Jarl K. Jackson and Julie L. Vosmik, “Robert Russa Moton High School” (Prince Edward County, Virginia) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1994), 9. 7 Richard Kluger, Simple Justice (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 521 quoted by Susan Cianci Salvatore, “John Philip Sousa Junior High School” (Washington , D.C.) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form (Washington , D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001), 11. 8 Ibid., 12. 9 Power, “Summerton High School,” 9. 10 Quoted in Salvatore, 14.

This reading was compiled from Richard Kluger, Simple Justice (New York: Vintage Books, 1977); Martha Hagedorn-Krass, “Sumner Elementary School and Monroe Elementary School” (Shawnee County, Kansas) National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1991; J. Tracy Power, “Summerton High School” (Clarendon County, South Carolina) National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1994; Flavia W. Rutkosky, “Howard High School” (New Castle County, Delaware) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2004; Jarl K. Jackson and Julie L. Vosmik, “Robert Russa Moton High School” (Prince Edward County, Virginia) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1994; Susan Cianci Salvatore, “John Philip Sousa Junior High School” (Washington, D.C.) National Historic Landmark Nomination Form, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001; and Susan Cianci Salvatore, Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Vicki L. Ruiz, Patricia Sullivan, Harvard Sitkoff, “Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the United States,” National Historic Landmarks Theme Study, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2000

Additional Resource:

National Park Service Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site is a unit of the National Park System. The site is located at Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas. Monroe was the segregated school attended by the lead plaintiff's daughter, Linda Brown, when Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was initially filed in 1951. The park's web page provides in-depth information on the case as well as related cases, and visitation and research information.

“With an Even Hand”: Brown v. Board at 50 This Library of Congress online exhibition examines the court cases that laid the ground work for the Brown v. Board decision, explores the Supreme Court argument and the public's response to it, and provides an overview of the decision's aftermath.

Brown at 50: Fulfilling the Promise This website , sponsored by Howard University School of Law, commemorates the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The site features a chronology of events leading up to the case and beyond, biographical sketches of some of the figures involved in the case, as well as the full text of the Supreme Court's decision.

Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education This online exhibit , produced by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, includes sections on the history of segregation in America, the fight to end segregation, and the legacy of the Brown ruling.

Part of a series of articles titled Civil Rights and Public Education .

Previous: (H)our History Lesson: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and Modernized Schools

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Last updated: May 31, 2024

How Brown v. Board of Education Changed Public Education for the Better

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One of the most historical court cases, especially in terms of education, was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , 347 U.S. 483 (1954). This case took on segregation within school systems or the separation of White and Black students within public schools. Up until this case, many states had laws establishing separate schools for White students and another for Black students. This landmark case made those laws unconstitutional.

The decision was handed down on May 17, 1954. It overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which had allowed states legalize segregation within schools. The chief justice in the case was Justice Earl Warren . His court’s decision was a unanimous 9-0 decision that said, “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The ruling essentially led the way for the civil rights movement and essentially integration across the United States.

Fast Facts: Brown v. Board of Education

• Case Argued: December 9–11, 1952; December 7–9, 1953
• Decision Issued:  May 17, 1954
• Petitioners:  Oliver Brown, Mrs. Richard Lawton, Mrs. Sadie Emmanuel, et al
• Respondent:  Board of Education of Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al
• Key Questions: Does the segregation of public education based solely on race violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
• Unanimous Decision: Justices Warren, Black, Reed, Frankfurter, Douglas, Jackson, Burton, Clark, and Minton
• Ruling: "Separate but equal" educational facilities, segregated on the basis of race, are inherently unequal and in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

A class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the city of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas in 1951. The plaintiffs consisted of 13 parents of 20 children who attended the Topeka School District. They filed the suit hoping that the school district would change its policy of racial segregation .

Each of the plaintiffs was recruited by the Topeka NAACP , led by McKinley Burnett, Charles Scott, and Lucinda Scott. Oliver L. Brown was the named plaintiff in the case. He was an African American welder, father, and assistant pastor at a local church. His team chose to use his name as part of a legal tactic to have a man’s name on the front of the suit. He was also a strategic choice because he, unlike some of the other parents, was not a single parent and, the thinking went, would appeal more strongly to a jury. 

In the fall of 1951, 21 parents attempted to enroll their children in the closest school to their homes, but each was denied enrollment and told that they must enroll in the segregated school. This prompted the class action suit to be filed. At the district level, the court ruled in favor of the Topeka Board of Education saying that both schools were equal in regards to transportation, buildings, curriculum, and highly qualified teachers. The case then went on to the Supreme Court and was combined with four other similar suits from across the country.

Significance

Brown v. Board  entitled students to receive a quality education regardless of their racial status. It also allowed for African American teachers to teach in any public school they chose, a privilege that was not granted before the Supreme Court ruling in 1954. The ruling set the foundation for the civil rights movement and gave African American’s hope that “separate, but equal” on all fronts would be changed. Unfortunately, however, desegregation was not that easy and is a project that has not been finished, even today. 

• Brown v. Board of Education
• Major Milestones in Ending Segregation in the United States
• Bolling v. Sharpe: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• Lau v. Nichols: Are Schools Required to Provide Bilingual Instruction?
• Browder v. Gayle: Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• Cooper v. Aaron: Supreme Court Case, Arguments, Impact
• How Segregation Was Ruled Illegal in U.S.
• Civil Rights Movement Timeline From 1951 to 1959
• The Black Struggle for Freedom
• Biography of Thurgood Marshall, First Black Supreme Court Justice
• The Warren Court: Its Impact and Importance
• Federalism and How It Works
• Supreme Court Decisions - Everson v. Board of Education
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Did Not End the Movement for Equality
• What Is Judicial Activism?

Milestone Documents

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives.

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View Transcript

In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896  Plessy v. Ferguson  case.

On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case  Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas . State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson and served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s.

Arguments were to be heard during the next term to determine just how the ruling would be imposed. Just over one year later, on May 31, 1955, Warren read the Court's unanimous decision, now referred to as Brown II , instructing the states to begin desegregation plans "with all deliberate speed."

Despite two unanimous decisions and careful, if vague, wording, there was considerable resistance to the Supreme Court's ruling in  Brown v. Board of Education . In addition to the obvious disapproving segregationists were some constitutional scholars who felt that the decision went against legal tradition by relying heavily on data supplied by social scientists rather than precedent or established law. Supporters of judicial restraint believed the Court had overstepped its constitutional powers by essentially writing new law.

However, minority groups and members of the civil rights movement were buoyed by the  Brown  decision even without specific directions for implementation. Proponents of judicial activism believed the Supreme Court had appropriately used its position to adapt the basis of the Constitution to address new problems in new times. The Warren Court stayed this course for the next 15 years, deciding cases that significantly affected not only race relations, but also the administration of criminal justice, the operation of the political process, and the separation of church and state.

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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+)

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS*

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal.

(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.

Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then-existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among "all persons born or naturalized in the United States." Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of "separate but equal" did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the "separate but equal" doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. County Board of Education , 175 U.S. 528, and Gong Lum v. Rice , 275 U.S. 78, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada , 305 U.S. 337; Sipuel v. Oklahoma , 332 U.S. 631; Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , 339 U.S. 637. In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter , supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter , there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other "tangible" factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

In Sweatt v. Painter , supra, in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on "those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school." In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , supra, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: ". . . his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession." Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson , this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity. On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question -- the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.

It is so ordered.

* Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al. , on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

Brown v. Board of Education

The case that transformed america.

On May 17, 1954, a decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case declared the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional. The landmark Brown v. Board decision gave LDF its most celebrated victory in a long, storied history of fighting for civil rights and marked a defining moment in US history. The decision in Brown v. Board  remains a defining moment in U.S. history.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education occurred after a hard-fought, multi-year campaign to persuade all nine justices to overturn the “separate but equal” doctrine that their predecessors had endorsed in the Court’s infamous 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. This campaign was conceived in the 1930s by Charles Hamilton Houston, then Dean of Howard Law School, and brilliantly executed in a series of cases over the next two decades by his star pupil, Thurgood Marshall–the man who became Legal Defense Fund’s first Director-Counsel and a Supreme Court Justice.

Brown v. Board of Education itself was not a single case, but rather a coordinated group of five lawsuits against school districts in Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. 

PHOTO: Students and their parents who initiated the landmark Civil Rights lawsuit 'Brown V Board of Education,' Topeka, Kansas, 1953, Pictured are, front row, from left, students, Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown James Emanuel, Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper; back row, from left, parents Zelma Henderson, Oliver Brown, Sadie Emanuel, Lucinda Todd, and Lena Carper. (Photo by Carl Iwasaki/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images)

To litigate these cases, Thurgood Marshall recruited the nation’s best attorneys , including Robert Carter, Jack Greenberg , Constance Baker Motley , Spottswood Robinson, Oliver Hill, Louis Redding, Charles and John Scott, Harold R. Boulware, James Nabrit, and George E.C. Hayes. These LDF lawyers were assisted by a brain trust of legal scholars, including future federal district court judges Louis Pollack and Jack Weinstein, along with William Coleman, the first Black person to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk.

Their argument was clear: The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws, and racial segregation violates that principle. The lawyers marshalled expert witnesses to prove what most of us take for granted today, that state-enforced racial segregation in education “deprives [Black children] of equal status in the school community…destroys their self-respect, denies them full opportunity for democratic social development [and]…stamps [them] with a badge of inferiority.”

LDF relied upon research by historians like John Hope Franklin, and the work of social science researchers like June Shagaloff. Ms. Shagaloff was brought on staff by Marshall because he felt that chronicling the impact of segregation on children and families was critical to the success of LDF’s litigation. Her historical and social science research played a key role in LDF’s preparation for the successful Brown v. Board arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s now-famous doll experiments were also central to LDF’s success in Brown v. Board. The experiments demonstrated the impact of segregation on black children. In presenting three to seven-year-old children with four dolls, identical except for color, Clark found Black children were led to believe that Black dolls were inferior to white dolls and, by extension, that they were inferior to their white peers. The Supreme Court cited Clark’s 1950 paper in its Brown decision and acknowledged it implicitly in the following passage: “To separate [African-American children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”

The Doll Test

In the 1940s, pioneering psychologists Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of experiments known as “the doll tests” to study the psychological effects of segregation on Black children.

After the five cases were heard together by the Court in December 1952, the outcome remained uncertain. The Court ordered the parties to answer a series of questions about the specific intent of the congressmen and senators who framed the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and about the Court’s power to dismantle segregation.  The Court then scheduled another oral argument in December 1953.  

Wrapping up his presentation to the Court in that second hearing, Marshall emphasized that segregation was rooted in the desire to keep “the people who were formerly in slavery as near to that stage as is possible.” Even with powerful arguments from Marshall and other LDF attorneys, it took another five months for the newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren’s behind-the-scenes lobbying to yield a unanimous decision. 

Recognizing the controversial nature of its decision, the Court waited another year to issue an order enforcing the decision in Brown II .  Even then, the Court was unwilling to establish a firm timetable for dismantling segregation. It ruled only that public schools desegregate “with all deliberate speed.”

LDF Clients and Lawyers Risked Their Lives for this Fight

Black women and girls were the voices behind the school desegregation movement since the beginning, but have often been relegated to the footnotes of history. in the kansas case that became brown v. board, all but one of the plaintiffs were women. black women and girls bravely took action to transform the american educational system and bring an end to segregation.

Unfortunately, desegregation was neither deliberate nor speedy.  In the face of fierce and often violent “ massive resistance ,” LDF sued hundreds of school districts across the country to vindicate the promise of Brown . It was not until LDF’s subsequent victories in Green v. County School Board (1968) and Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg (1971) that the Supreme Court issued mandates that segregation be dismantled “root and branch,” outlined specific factors to be considered to eliminate effects of segregation, and ensured that federal district courts had the authority to do so.

Even today, the work of  Brown  is far from  finished .   Over 200 school desegregation cases remain open on federal court dockets; LDF alone has nearly 100 of these cases.

The legal victory in  Brown  did not transform the country overnight, and much work remains.  But striking down segregation in the nation’s public schools provided a major catalyst for the civil rights movement, making possible advances in desegregating housing, public accommodations, and institutions of higher education.  The decision gave hope to millions of Americans by permanently discrediting the legal rationale underpinning the racial caste system that had been endorsed or accepted by governments at all levels since the end of the nineteenth century. And its impact has been felt by every American.

Learn More About Brown v. Board

The women and girls who shaped brown v. board of education.

The Girls who Shaped Brown v. Board of Education Their Untold Stories and the Sacrifices that Made Today’s Fight for Educational Equity Possible By Cara

The Southern Manifesto and “Massive Resistance” to Brown 

The Case that Changed America Brown v. Board of Education The Southern Manifesto and “Massive Resistance” to Brown Learn More About Brown v. Board Almost

The Significance of “The Doll Test”

A Revealing Experiment Brown v. Board and “The Doll Test” Learn More About Brown v. Board Doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark and “The Doll Test”

Six of the Women Behind Brown v. Board of Education

The Case that Changed America Six of the Women Behind Brown v. Board of Education Learn More About Brown v. Board Throughout LDF’s history, women

Meet the Legal Minds Behind Brown v. Board of Education

The Case that Transformed America Brown v. Board of Education Meet the Legal Team The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education Reading List

The Case that Changed America Brown v. Board of Education Reading list On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its unanimous decision in

What Was Brown v. Board of Education? May 17, 1954, marks a defining moment in the history of the United States. On that day, the

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The Brown v. Board of Education case didn’t start how you think it did

Associate Professsor of Ethnic Studies, University of Oregon

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Charise Cheney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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As the nation celebrates the 65th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, the case is often recalled as one that “ forever changed the course of American history .”

But the story behind the historic Supreme Court case, as I plan to show in my forthcoming book, “Blacks Against Brown: The Black Anti-Integration Movement in Topeka, Kansas, 1941-1954,” is much more complex than the highly inaccurate but often-repeated tale about how the lawsuit began. The story that often gets told is that – as recounted in this news story – the case began with Oliver Brown, who tried to enroll his daughter, Linda, at the Sumner School, an all-white elementary school in Topeka near the Browns’ home. Or that Oliver Brown was a “determined father who took Linda Brown by the hand and made history.”

As my research shows, that tale is at odds with two great historical ironies of Brown v. Board. The first irony is that Oliver Brown was actually a reluctant participant in the Supreme Court case that would come to be named after him. In fact, Oliver Brown, a reserved man, had to be convinced to sign on to the lawsuit because he was a new pastor at church that did not want to get involved in Topeka NAACP’s desegregation lawsuit, according to various Topekans whose recollections are recorded in the Brown Oral History Collection at the Kansas State Historical Society .

The second irony is that, of the five local desegregation cases brought before the Supreme Court by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1953, Brown’s case – formally known as Oliver Brown et al., v. Board of Education of Topeka, et al. – ended up bringing widespread attention to a city where many blacks actually resisted school integration. That not-so-small detail has been overshadowed by the way the case is presented in history.

Black resistance to integration

While school desegregation may have symbolized racial progress for many blacks throughout the country, that simply was not the case in Topeka. In fact, most of the resistance to the NAACP’s school desegregation efforts in Topeka came from Topeka’s black citizens, not whites.

“I didn’t get anything from white folks,” Leola Brown Montgomery, wife of Oliver and mother of Linda, recalled. “I tell you here in Topeka, unlike the other places where they brought these cases we didn’t have any threats” from whites.

Prior to the Brown case, black Topekans had been embroiled in a decade-long conflict over segregated schools that began with a lawsuit involving Topeka’s junior high schools. When the Topeka School Board commissioned a poll to determine black support for integrated junior high schools in 1941, 65 percent of black parents with junior high school students indicated that they preferred all-black schools, according to school board minutes .

Separate but equal

Another wrinkle to the story is that the city’s four all-black elementary schools – Buchanan, McKinley, Monroe and Washington – had resources, facilities and curricula that were comparable to that of Topeka’s white schools. The Topeka school board actually adhered to the “separate-but-equal” standard established by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case.

Even Linda Brown recalled the all-black Monroe Elementary School that she attended as a “very nice facility, being very well-kept.”

“I remember the materials that we used being of good quality,” Linda Brown stated in a 1985 interview.

That made the Topeka lawsuit unique among the cases the NAACP Legal Defense Fund combined and argued before the Supreme Court in 1953. Black schoolchildren in Topeka did not experience overcrowded classrooms like those in Washington, D.C., nor were they subjected to dilapidated school buildings like those in Delaware or Virginia.

While black parents in Delaware and South Carolina petitioned their local school boards for bus service, the Topeka School Board voluntarily provided buses for black children. Topeka’s school buses became central to the local NAACP’s equal access complaint due to weather and travel conditions .

Quality education was “not the issue at that time,” Linda Brown recalled , “but it was the distance that I had to go to acquire that education.”

Another unique characteristic of Topeka public schools was that black students went to both all-black elementary and predominantly white junior high and high schools. This fact presented another challenge for the Topeka NAACP’s desegregation crusade. The transition from segregated elementary schools to integrated junior and senior high schools was a harsh and alienating one. Many black Topekans recalled the overt and covert racism of white teachers and administrators. “It wasn’t the grade schools that sunk me,” Richard Ridley, a black resident and Topeka High School alumnus who graduated in 1947, told interviewers for the Brown Oral History Collection at the Kansas State Historical Society. “It was the high school.”

Black teachers cherished

A primary reason that black Topekans fought the local NAACP’s desegregation efforts is because they appreciated black educators’ dedication to their students. Black residents who opposed school integration often spoke of the familial environment in all-black schools.

Linda Brown herself praised the teachers at her alma mater, Monroe Elementary, for having high expectations and setting “ very good examples for their students .

Black teachers proved to be a formidable force against the local NAACP. "We have a situation here in Topeka in which the Negro Teachers are violently opposed to our efforts to integrate the public schools,” NAACP branch Secretary Lucinda Todd wrote in a letter to the national NAACP in 1953.

Black supporters of all-black schools used a number of overt and covert tactics to undermine NAACP members’ efforts. Those tactics included lobbying, networking, social ostracism, verbal threats, vandalism, sending harassing mail, making intimidating phone calls, the Brown Oral History Collection reveals.

But the national office of the NAACP never appreciated the unique challenges that its local chapter faced. The Topeka NAACP struggled to recruit plaintiffs, despite their door-to-door canvassing.

Fundraising was also a major problem. The group could not afford the legal services of their attorneys and raised only $100 of the $5,000 needed to bring the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unheralded legacy

History ultimately would not be on the side of the majority of Topeka’s black community. A small cohort of local NAACP members kept pushing for desegregation, even as they stood at odds with most black Topekans.

Linda Brown and her father may be remembered as the faces of Brown v. Board of Education. But without the resilience and resourcefulness of three local NAACP members – namely, Daniel Sawyer, McKinley Burnett and Lucinda Todd – there would have been no Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

The real story of Brown v. Board may not capture the public imagination like that of a 9-year-old girl who “brought a case that ended segregation in public schools in America.” Nevertheless, it is the truth behind the myth. And it deserves to be told.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story appeared in The Conversation on March 30, 2018 .

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Brown v Board of Education: Fact Summary, Analysis & Judgment

• Post author: Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka ACMC
• Post published: August 21, 2021
• Post category: Education News / Law Reporting

Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 : The right of protection against discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, religion, etc., is a right guaranteed in many countries by their constitutions. It is, no less, guaranteed in the United States of America.

Although slavery was prominent in the United States during the period of its acceptance, and with it, racism, laws were later made to guard against racism as America began to grow out of its ugly past. There were however, still some laws that still promoted segregation and discrimination, in the midst of it all.

This is why the Supreme Court in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka examined the segregation laws of Texas and sought to maintain equality of facilities in all public educational programs.

Recommended: Can the supreme court overrule itself? See Answer here

Table of Contents

Facts of Brown v Board of Education

The thirteen plaintiff parents of African-American children had attempted to enroll their children in local white elementary schools that were close by because of proximity as the black schools were far from where they lived.

They  were excluded from enrolling their children in local white elementary schools as there were Kansas laws which supported this exclusion or even mandated it. This exclusion was as a result of their race.

The parents to these African-American children alleged that the facilities in the Black schools were not equal to those in the white schools.

They were aggrieved and sued the Board of Education of the City of Topeka and also, the elementary schools who would not let them enroll their children.

Also see: Combe v Combe – Facts, issues and decision of the court

Issues Determined in Brown v Board of Education

Whether or not the segregation laws of Kansas violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Whether there was provided for black schools equal educational facilities.

Also see: Facts, Issues and Judgment of Court In Donoghue v Stevenson

Judgement of the court in Brown v Board of Education

The case was first tried in the District Court of Kansas where it was held in favour of the Board of Education of the City of Topeka. While the court agreed that the segregation laws had adverse effects on the African-American children, it disagreed with the argument that the black schools and the white schools had different educational facilities, holding that the facilities in these schools were equal.

On appeal to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court held in favour of the African-American parents whose children were discriminated against.

The Supreme Court held that Kansas laws that encouraged discrimination in the enrollment into schools, were in conflict with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Court’s considerations in this case were: The Plessy principle of ‘separate but equal; the duty of the government to administer a public school equally; how segregation affected the African-American children; and the idea of having equality of school facilities.

The court held that the principle, which was upheld in the case of Plessy v Ferguson, called the principle of  ‘ separate but equal ‘, did not apply with regards to public education.

In the case of Plessy v Ferguson , the Supreme Court held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was not infringed, where an African-American man was refused a ride in an all white train in Louisiana. When the conductor found him and asked him to leave, he refused and was arrested.

Here, the Plessy principle of ‘separate but equal was formed. Even though he alleged that the Louisiana laws were  contradictory to  and violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States, he was found guilty of violating the Louisiana laws. Even in his appeal, the Supreme Court decided against him, holding that equal protection did not require the races to mingle together. It held that a different train accommodation for African-American people did not lower their social rank in any way: there was no legal inequality between the races, but only a separation of the races.

It is in light of the above case that the Board of Education of the City of Topeka argued that there was nothing wrong or violating with the Kansas laws that segregated white and black children in public schools.

The court paid less attention to the provision of equal facilities in the different schools and looked more at the effect that the segregation law of Kansas had.

The court stated that a child’s educational benefits were basic to his social development and their success in life.

To the court, the effect of segregation in the educational program would be an indelible sense of inferiority on the part of the victims of the segregation. Thus, the educational facilities provided to the discriminated group, regardless of the physical facilities, were inherently unequal.

Conclusively, even though the case of Plessy v Ferguson had set a bad foundation with regards to the protection of the rights of citizens from discrimination, the line was drawn in the Brown Case as it affected little children and their equal opportunity to get a good education where ever that good education could be found. Thus, the Brown Case was a right step forward to a more civilized society where the emotional well-being of citizens were put into consideration and the effect of  segregation on the social development of the children among their peers and its likelihood to affect their future successes was a reason to nip segregation in the bud.

Recommended: Exceptions to the rule in Rylands v Fletcher

Analysis of Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483

The Supreme Court clearly distinguished the case of Plessy v Ferguson from the instant case. There seemed to be a more urgent need to protect the self esteem of little children by protecting them from feeling ‘inferior’ in the face of their white counterparts. The Supreme Court saw a need in the Brown Case to protect the right against discrimination of the human person, and dignity of the human person, and held that the Kansas law was violating and ripping the school children of equal facilities, just because their self esteem could be affected by the segregation, but it did not see a need to so do where those children were now adults. One would wonder at the hypocrisy of even trying to find a justification for one form of racism and no one for another form, when racism, in any form it appears, should be dealt with the same urgency and seriousness.

It is encouraging, however, that racism as it was at one time in history is different from racism at another time. The attitude of the Courts and the States were changing in light of the growing realization of the uncivilized nature of State support of segregation and discrimination.

The United States still has issues of institutionalized racism, but these would hardly be seen supported by State Laws.

Edeh Samuel Chukwuemeka, ACMC, is a lawyer and a certified mediator/conciliator in Nigeria. He is also a developer with knowledge in various programming languages. Samuel is determined to leverage his skills in technology, SEO, and legal practice to revolutionize the legal profession worldwide by creating web and mobile applications that simplify legal research. Sam is also passionate about educating and providing valuable information to people.

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How Dolls Helped Win Brown v. Board of Education

By: Erin Blakemore

Updated: September 29, 2023 | Original: March 27, 2018

Dolls are for kids. So why were they in front of the most esteemed judges in the United States?

As they deliberated on Brown v. Board of Education , the landmark 1954 case that eventually overturned “separate-but-equal” segregation in the United States, the Supreme Court Justices contemplated oral arguments and pored over case transcripts. But they also considered baby dolls—unexpected weapons in the plaintiffs’ fight against racial discrimination.

The dolls were part of a group of groundbreaking psychological experiments performed by Mamie and Kenneth Clark, a husband-and-wife team of African American psychologists who devoted their life’s work to understanding and helping heal children’s racial biases. During the “doll tests,” as they’re now known, a majority of African American children showed a preference for dolls with white skin instead of Black ones—a consequence, the Clarks argued, of the pernicious effects of segregation.

The Clarks’ work, and their testimony in the underlying cases that became Brown v. Board of Education , helped the Supreme Court justices and the nation understand some of the lingering effects of segregation on the very children it affected most.

For the Clarks, the results showed the devastating effects of life in a society that was intolerant of African-Americans. Their experiment , which involved white- and brown-skinned dolls, was deceptively simple. (In a reflection of the racial biases of the time, the Clarks had to paint a white baby doll brown for the tests, since African American dolls were not yet manufactured.) The children were asked to identify the diapered dolls in a number of ways: the one they wanted to play with, the one that looked “white,” “colored,” or “Negro,” the one that was “good” or “bad.” Finally, they were asked to identify the doll that looked most like them.

All of the children tested were Black, and all but one group attended segregated schools. Most of the children preferred the white doll to the African American one. Some of the children would cry and run out of the room when asked to identify which doll looked like them. These results upset the Clarks so much that they delayed publishing their conclusions.

Mamie Clark had connections to the growing legal struggle to overturn segregation—she had worked in the office of one of the lawyers who helped lay the foundation for Brown v. Board of Education. When the NAACP learned of the Clarks’ work, they asked them to participate in a case that would later be rolled into the class-action case that went to the Supreme Court. So Kenneth Clark headed to Clarendon County, South Carolina, to replicate his test with Black children there. It was a terrifying experience, he recalled later, especially when his NAACP host was threatened in his presence. 

“But we had to test those children,” he recalled . “These children saw themselves as inferior and they accepted the inferiority as part of reality.”

Thurgood Marshall was eager to use the Clarks’ work in the bigger class-action case that would become Brown v. Board of Education , but not everyone was convinced. Attorney Spotswood Robinson  told an observer that it was “crazy and insulting to persuade a court of law with examples of crying children and dolls,” writes historian Martha Minow.

But the court didn’t think so. Kenneth Clark testified at three of the trials and helped write a summary of all five trials’ social science testimony that was used in the Supreme Court case. He told judges and juries that African American children’s preference for white dolls represented psychological damage that was reinforced by segregation.

“My opinion is that a fundamental effect of segregation is basic confusion in the individuals and their concepts about themselves conflicting in their self images,” he told the jury in the Briggs case. The sense of inferiority caused by segregation had real, lifelong consequences, he argued—consequences that started before children could even articulate any information about race.

The Clarks’ work and testimony were part of a much broader case that combined five cases and covered nearly every aspect of school segregation—and some historians  argue that the doll tests played a relatively insignificant part in the court’s decision. But echoes of the Clarks’ results ring through the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court justices.

“To separate [Black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone,” wrote Chief Justice Earl Warren in the opinion. The Clarks’ work had helped strike down segregation in the United States.

Today, one of the Black dolls is on  display at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Kansas, and integration is the law of the land. But the racial biases the couple documented in the 1930s and 1940s still exist. In 2010, CNN  commissioned an updated version of the study using cartoon depictions of children and a color bar that showed a range of skin tones—and found results that were strikingly similar to those shown by the Clarks.

In the new test, child development researcher Margaret Beale Spencer tested 133 kids from schools with different racial and income mixes. This time, the studies looked at white children, too. And though Black children seemed to hold more positive views toward Black dolls, white children maintained an intense bias toward whiteness.

“We are still living in a society where dark things are devalued and white things are valued,” Spencer  told CNN. Jim Crow segregation may no longer exist in the United States, but racial bias is alive and well.

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In fall 1950, Oliver Brown tried to enroll his seven-year-old daughter Linda in the Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas. Black children were not allowed to attend. The Browns appealed, ultimately leading to the monumental Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision on May 17, 1954. Linda is seated third from the left and her father, Oliver Brown, is standing second from the left. Listen to highlights of the case at the Brown Revisited website (Cornell University co-owns the Oyez Project website on which this project is hosted.)

June 5, 2024  |  Source: Brown Revisited

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News & Ideas  -  Remembering Brown v. Board of Education

By Sharon L. Davies

I can’t remember when I first heard the title of this landmark case, but I am certain it was well before I attended law school. It was maybe as early as middle school or grade school, which says a lot about the significance of the case to our society.

You certainly don’t have to have gone to law school to know about this case. When you hear someone refer to the shorthand title of the case, Brown v. Board , or even “the Brown decision” most know immediately that the reference is to the case in which the Supreme Court finally declared as unconstitutional laws that banned White and Black children attending public schools together.

There are a handful of case names that are familiar to us in this way: the 1966 Miranda decision, which established “Miranda warnings” that police are expected to give before interrogating people in custody. Or Roe v. Wade , the 1973 decision that settled, for a time, women’s reproductive freedom and right to choose an abortion. And more recently the Dobbs decision, reversing Roe v. Wade .

Brown v. Board of Education is like that. It remains familiar to us, despite being decided exactly 70 years ago this month. That’s a long time ago. Why are we still talking about it?

One answer is that, of all the decisions decided by the US Supreme Court across its history, Brown is considered by many to be its most moral decision. And incontestably it represents a watershed moment in the long struggle for racial equality in our country.

But let’s also be clear. It took a long time for the Supreme Court to get to the point where it would deliver the opinion that it did in Brown , finally reversing a horror of a decision that it had handed down in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson , which established the shameful “separate but equal” doctrine, a doctrine that was used for decades to justify laws and practices that policed the segregation of Whites and Blacks in a host of settings, including K-12 schools, college campuses, trains, busses, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, libraries, public pools, water fountains, public bathrooms, barber shops, even cemeteries and entire neighborhoods.

It is sometimes forgotten that the decision in Brown v. Board of Education itself was not a single case, it was the consolidation of five separate lawsuits against five different school districts in Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Each of those cases raised the same central question: did laws that kept Black and White children from attending public schools together violate the US Constitution?

One of those five cases touched my father’s family. My father was one of the hundreds of thousands of Black children in South Carolina who were banned from attending schools open only to White children. And sadly, the decision in Brown in 1954 came too late to impact the educational experiences that my dad had in his home state. But years later, the decision meant that his children, my brothers and sisters and I, would have at least a handful of White classmates along with our Black classmates in the schools we attended in South Carolina.

Change like that has never happened quickly in the United States. As much as we celebrate the decision in Brown today, it is worth remembering that the change that the decision called for was the subject of massive resistance and horrifying violence. The power of the Supreme Court in 1954 was not sufficient by itself to attain justice for Black Americans. Which was why, 10 years later, the US Congress would have to reinforce the Court’s decision in Brown by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And over the long haul, the decision was also vulnerable to being undermined through other legal, if ignoble means, such as the phenomenon of White flight.

Brown was a significant step in our nation’s still unfinished journey toward racial fairness. Although a monumental legal victory, the decision’s turbulent aftermath highlights the importance of the public’s willingness to accept the rightness of the Court’s pronouncements. This can be a big ask, given the Court’s imperfect jurisprudence and citizens’ deep disagreements with each other. In the end, history will be the judge of us all. The progress achieved through Brown was made possible not just by the Court’s decision but also through the courage of the plaintiffs who raised their voices at a dangerous time, the persistence of their lawyers who, case by case, chipped away at a legal doctrine unworthy of us, the social scientists whose work exposed the harms of White supremacy for Black and White Americans, and the activists, community leaders, and ordinary citizens who insisted on fairness and social change. As we reflect on the significance of this landmark decision, we must honor the legacy of those who refused to give up the fight for a better us and continue the work that they began.

Clarence Thomas criticizes Brown v. Board of Education. It comes at an awkward moment

WASHINGTON − Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas this week criticized a piece of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision s that made racial segregation in schools illegal in arguing that courts should get out of the business of deciding if congressional maps discriminate against Black people.

His charge came just a week after the 70 th anniversary of the landmark case.

Thomas said the Supreme Court took a “boundless view of equitable remedies” when it told schools in 1955 how they needed to comply with the initial 1954 decision .

That may have justified temporary measures to overcome the schools’ widespread resistance, Thomas wrote. But it’s not backed up by the Constitution or by the nation’s “history and tradition.”

Federal courts, he said, do not have “the flexible power to invent whatever new remedies may seem useful at the time.”

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Thomas made that case in arguing that courts have no role in deciding if congressional maps have been unfairly drawn to discriminate against Black people.

The court’s conservative majority dismissed a challenge to a South Carolina district that a civil rights group said had been drawn to limit the influence of Black voters.

Thomas agreed with that decision but separately argued courts don’t have the constitutional authority to get involved. He blamed the second Brown v. Board of Education decision – an attempt by the court to enforce the first ruling -- for starting such “extravagant uses of judicial power.”

Thomas has made similar points in the past. In a 1995 concurring opinion , Thomas wrote that the “extraordinary remedial measures” the court approved because of its impatience with the pace of desegregation and schools’ lack of good-faith effort should have been temporary and used only to overcome widespread resistance to following the Constitution.

Brown v. Board of Education is on Thin Ice With This Supreme Court

C ivil rights established by previous generations are on shaky ground as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas openly shared his disapproval of Brown v. Board of Education . In a 1954 unanimous decision, justices declared segregated schools unconstitutional, setting a powerful precedent that challenged the racial hierarchy after nearly a century of "separate but equal" under Plessy v. Ferguson . However, as a court decision rather than legislation, Brown v. Board of Education relies on the court's interpretation, leaving its future uncertain.

The recent overturning of Roe v. Wade , which stripped women of reproductive rights, raises concerns about the potential of dismantling other civil rights precedents. If nearly fifty years of so-called settled law can be rescinded, what does this mean for the security of Brown v. Board of Education? Two years ago, I wrote an article in Oprah Daily suggesting that the Roe v. Wade reversal could  set back school desegregation . After the Supreme Court dismissed protections for women's reproductive rights, Senator John Cornyn's statement, "Now do Plessy vs. Ferguson/Bron vs. Board of Education," signaled his desire to see these decisions rescinded as well. A country where women and Black people have fewer rights should concern all citizens, yet some eagerly await the systematic rollback of civil liberties. We must view these rights as vulnerable because they stand on shifting tectonic plates.

Acknowledging the vulnerability of civil rights precedents is the first step in protecting them. Citizens must remain vigilant and engaged, actively advocating for preserving landmark decisions like Brown v. Board of Education to progress toward an equitable society. If the Constitution is not robust or sturdy enough to protect citizens' rights, it must be expanded. This raises the question many have asked after learning of Thomas's opinion: Why is Brown v. Board of Education on thin ice?

We must remember that the Jim Crow system of racial apartheid ended not because the average white American experienced a shift in conscience but because of the opinions held by those on the Supreme Court. Enforcing Brown v. Board of Education required President Dwight Eisenhower to send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to ensure white politicians, parents, students, faculty, and staff would accept Black students in formerly whites-only public schools. It is also noteworthy that de-facto segregation persists in America despite Brown v. Board of Education, as white parents resisted integration policies.

Of course, it's noteworthy that a Black man is throwing stones at the precedent set by  Brown v. Board of Education . Justice Clarence Thomas' actions illustrate how token representation is weaponized. While most Black Americans support the advancement of civil rights, highlighting the views of someone in the minority can weaken the community's overall goals. As a 75-year-old Black man, Justice Thomas is undoubtedly aware of the severe underfunding and discrimination that Black students faced before the 1954 ruling. Then, Black children languished in severely underfunded, dilapidated schools. Despite their academic abilities, they were denied access to colleges and universities solely due to the color of their skin.

Eliminating these protections would only serve to exacerbate the racial disparities for Black students. Nevertheless, conservatives have long criticized Brown v. Board of Education as judicial overreach in its interpretation, and Justice Thomas made similar remarks in a 1995 concurring opinion. He claimed that justices used "extraordinary remedial measures" to address racial segregation in public schools, ironically ignoring that such protections were necessitated by systemic racism in American society.

In Brown v. Board of Education, justices recognized that "segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children." Furthermore, their unanimous decision asserted that segregation "deprived [them] of equal protection of the laws generated by the Fourteenth Amendment." Reconstruction legislation designed to ensure equal legal protection became the foundation for dismantling the racial apartheid system. For Justice Thomas to suggest the Brown v. Board of Education went too far is concerning because it indicates an unwillingness to acknowledge the 14th Amendment, which has justified the development of civil rights legislation, such as The Civil Rights Act of 1964 , the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Voting Rights Act of 1968.

In 2015, Amber Philips wrote an article in The Washington Post warning that Republicans wanted to change the 14th Amendment , which often "requires war, crises or death." Changing the Constitution is not easy, but some conservatives have seriously considered doing so. For example, in 2018, President Trump threatened to abolish the 14th Amendment by executive order. Legal scholars quickly dispelled the confusion surrounding the limits of his authority, as Trump did not have the power to change the Constitution by executive order. The process requires support from the majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by a presidential signature. Although the method Trump proposed was implausible, his opposition to the 14th Amendment signaled growing political support among conservatives to abolish it. Failing to respect Reconstruction Accts puts Black Americans, as well as other racial minorities, at risk.

This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Allison's work on Medium .