Analysis of the Brown v Board of Education Case

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Recommended: History grade 12 civil rights movement

It is imperative to note that the case of Brown v Board of Education is based on a chronological history of the fight towards realization of human rights in the United States. This essay shall begin by discussing the history chronologically and accessing it whilst the essay goes along. It is clear that even though the United States constitution guaranteed equal rights to all men, the issue of slavery prevailed under violation of other human rights. It was only after the Civil War that slave trade was considered unlawful. It was not until 1865 that the Thirteenth Amendment was put into effect to help bring to an end slave trade. The need to strengthen the legal rights of slaves was noticed and by 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment was used to safeguard the rights of the freed slaves. The strengthening was by stating that the slaves were entitled to equal protection in the law. In addition, states were supposed to accord freed slaves the due process of the law. Under the two amendments that were earlier mentioned, it was not possible to accord full rights to freed slaves. The Fifteenth Amendment ensured that the freed slaves were allowed to vote. The prohibition of voting, due to race, was addressed by having the Fifteenth Amendment in place. Against any of the above amendments, the African Americans were often treated differently and they could not enjoy most of their rights. In many parts of the country, the blacks were treated with a level of discrimination. The Southern parts of the United States had a lot of discriminating. The legalizing of slavery in some of the states in the United States was a stumbling block that led to the rights in the amendments not being realized. The legislation in some of the states clearly provided that...

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...7, Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement: Abridged edition of From Jim Crow to civil rights: the Supreme Court and the struggle for racial equality, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Martin, WE 1998, Brown v. Board of Education: A brief history with documents, Bedford/St. Martin's, Boston, MA.

Orfield, G., Eaton, S. E., & Harvard Project on School Desegregation 1996, Dismantling desegregation: The quiet reversal of Brown v. Board of Education, New Press, New York, NY.

Rountree, C 2004, Brown v. Board of Education at fifty: A rhetorical perspective, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD.

Telgen, D 2005, Brown v. Board of Education, Omnigraphics, Detroit, MI.

Sen, A 2004, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights”, Philosophy and Public Affairs

Whitman, M 2004, Brown v. Board of Education: A documentary history, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, NJ.

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