Essay On Brown V Board Of Education

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Brown v. Board of Education
“The lone dissenting Justice in Plessy, John Harlan, objected to the majority’s decision: “[I]n view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law (Board v. Brown..., billofrightsinstitute.org)” In 1865, slavery was abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment (US Constitution. Amend. XIII, Sec I). The Fourteenth Amendment provided citizenship to African Americans (US Constitution. Amend XV, Sec I), and the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to African Americans (US Constitution. Amend XIV, Sec I).Despite views of Harlan and even with all of these rights granted to African Americans, the problem of segregation still existed. Separate was not equal and segregation was a constant reminder of that for African Americans. For equality, activist sought out to prove the unconstitutionality.
In 1896, “African Americans and their legal advocates suffered their most demoralizing defeat yet (Telgan 12).” That was the year that the Supreme Court issued the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. This decision allowed the existence of “separate but equal” facilities under the Fourteenth Amendment (Telgan 12).
This caused controversy within the education system as blacks fought for the rights of their children for a better education. Between the years of 1954-1955, the issue of segregation in public schools was finally being addressed (Brown v. Board of Education Timeline, www.archives.gov). Brown v. Board of Education was a series of five separate cases heard by the U.S ...

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...ed the decision to be made in the beginning of the Brown v. Board cases (Ginsberg 368). When a precedent is referred to in a court case it also says that it can be overturned by the Supreme Court after carefully examining it which later allowed the decision of desegregation to occur (Precedent, www. Princeton.edu).
The 14th amendment granted citizenship to African Americans and forbade states to restrict basic rights to African Americans (Ginsberg 42). When arguing the Brown v. Board, the 14th Amendment also came into question. School Board attorney T. Justin Moore suggested that the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to apply to local matters such as schools which made it constitutional (Telgen 56).
Although, the journey of equal rights in public education was a long fought journey the Supreme Court had finally made its decision to declare it unconstitutional.

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