And the Verdict Is In:

At the state level, the District Court, citing Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled in favor of the Board of Education.The three judges involved in the case stated that the white and negro schools were equal in the buildings, teachers, educational provisions as well as transportation.  Therefore, there was no need to the negro children to be allowed to attend the all white schools. This did not set well with the plaintiff's.  They appealed to the Supreme Court on October 1, 1951.  Finally, on December 2, 1952 the arguments were heard.  Both sided presented their case. For three days the lawyers provided the background, facts and arguments.  The judges discussed the issues for several months.  At that time requested the lawyers return for more questions.  During the questioning one of the justices died.  His replacement and many complications caused the case to last several years.
During this time protest continued and the topic was hot across the nations.

                                         

                        ("Civil Rights Movement for Brown v. Board of Education")

The Day Arrived ......

                           ("Brief for Appellants in Brown vs Board of Education")

Brown V. The Board of History was now underway. June of 1951 was the start of the case. Robert Carter was the lead attorney for the NAACP.


At the trial, the NAACP argued that a message was being sent to the colored children by keeping them in segregated schools.  The message was that they were not truly equal to the white children.   The witness for the NAACP Hugh W. Speer, testified that:


"...if the colored children are denied the experience in school of associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the colored child's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum cannot be equal under segregation."(Cozzins 1)


"The Board of Education's defense was that, because segregation in Topeka and elsewhere pervaded many other aspects of life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood. The board also argued that segregated schools were not necessarily harmful to black children; great African Americans such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver had overcome more than just segregated schools to achieve what they achieved.”
(Cozzins 2)

                                         

The Case of Bolling v. Sharpe

As the previous mentioned, another case in 1950 was a brewing.  John Phillip Sousa Junior High School in Washington DC was the next  victim of  black enrollment attempts by a group of angry parents.


Scenes like this were becoming common all over the United States.  Questions on the validity of the Constitution, the Fourteenth amendment and other legalities were questioned and challenged


                                                                      

                                                                             

                                                                 

                                                   (" Stock Image")

                                                            

Those Who Came Before.......

Prior to Linda Brown’s father attempting to enroll her in a white school, there

were others who took that same path as well.  Some of those cases were

rolled together into the Supreme Court Case Brown V. The Board of Education.

One of those cases was as early as 1949.  Briggs v. Elliott The NAAP went to the residents of Clarendon County, South Carolina with the

Premise that they would launch a case against segregation in public schools if

at least 20 of them would come forward to participate. 

Harry Briggs and 19 others were found willing, and a class action lawsuit

was filed against the school board.

This case was eventually rolled into the Brown v. Board of Education by the Supreme Court

And There Were More ..........................

Brown’s family was just one of thirteen African-American families recruited in Topeka by the NAACP. In 1950, organization spent time enlisting plaintiffs nationwide to prepare to approach the Supreme Court on the “separate but equal” ruling that had permitted segregation in American schools for half a century.

So, to start off the experiment, in the fall of 1950, a group of families went to enroll their children in their neighborhood white schools, with the expectation that they would be rejected.  And the result is history……

Although history scripted that Linda Brown and her family single handedly change  the mind of the Supreme Court and turned the nation around, there were a whole cast of supporting characters accompanying her on her journey

                                          ("African American Students")

For the Greater Glory of the Children

("Linda Brown with her parents")

It is hard to believe that in the United States of America in 1950 a third grader named Linda Brown with her friends had to walk a dangerous walk through a railroad switching station to get to the bus which would take her to school.  That bus then traveled miles to a school where only black children went.  Even harder to believe, is that there was a school only several blocks away from her home. That school only allowed white children. As any good father would,  Oliver Brown then decided to register his daughter in the white children's school.  He was rejected.  He did not stop there, Mr. Brown contacted McKinley Burnett who was the head of the Topeka branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Colored children had the same rights as white children.  They deserved an education where they were able to go to the school of their choice and have the books, classes and opportunities that all white children were afforded.


And so the story began.

Separate But Equal

                                     ("Segregated School West Memphis Arkansas")

Back in the early 1950's black children in the United States were denied the opportunities to attend the same school as white children.  this practise was based on a decision made years before in the Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.  The issue being "Can the states constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races use "separate but equal" segregated facilities.  the answer was YES! They could.