Brown v. Board of Education

          The 1954 court case of Oliver L. Brown against the Topeka Board of Education is a significant case in America’s history and helped to shape the nation.  The case was fighting racial segregation in schools.  Schools during this time were supposed to be made equal for all, however; segregation is not equality.  The previous court case, Plessy v. Fergsuson, upheld that schools could be separate but equal. The basis for the Brown case is that separate is not equal.  The case is named for one of the plaintiffs among many in Kansas and other states.  Oliver Brown’s daughter had to walk a mile to her black school in Topeka through a railroad switch yard instead of attending the elementary school that was only a few blocks away from her home.  This school was an all white elementary school that denied the admission of black students. 

The judges agreed that separate was not equal.  They wrote:  “Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children…A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn.”* This was not the first case against the segregation of schools, but this is the only case where the ruling was in favor of rejecting racial segregation.  “Racial segregation … ‘violates the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws.”** This ruling became a catalyst in the fight for civil rights. 

The Topeka Journal published an article entitled “8,000 Students Affected, State Officials See No Trouble Adjusting Schools to New Rule.”  This article points out statistics of African American students affected by the new ruling.  The Attorney General, Harold R. Fatzer, predicted that the Topeka schools and surrounding areas could be completely desegrated within two years.  He also comments on the fact that he nor anyone in his department had “defended or advocated” for segregation.  This quote causes me to think that Fatzer may be trying to “save face” in front of the nation and put a positive spin on this school district and other districts in Kansas.  The school district “in part” Fatzer says was already being desegregated and other districts in Kansas were also partly desegregating.  This article in general seems positive about the ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education.  The article does not go into detail about why the school district will have such little trouble considering how many students the ruling would be affecting.  I would be curious to read about the opinions of people in Kansas at this time of the ruling.

 

 

 

 

 

**Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research. 2004.  http://brownvboard.org/summary/.

 

*Lisa Cozzens. “Brown v. Board of Education.” 1995. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html.