The Significance of Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States was confronted with the controversial Brown v. Board of Education case that challenged segregation in public education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case because it called into question the morality and legality of racial segregation in public schools, a long-standing tradition in the Jim Crow South, and threatened to have monumental and everlasting implications for blacks and whites in America. The Brown v. Board of Education case is often noted for initiating racial integration and launching the civil rights movement. In 1951, Oliver L. Brown, his wife Darlene, and eleven other African American parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka, and sued them for denying their colored children the right to attend segregated white schools. They sought to change the policy of racial segregation in their school district. The plaintiffs collaborated with the leadership of the local Topeka NAACP to overturn segregation in public schools. In the fall of 1951, the parents tried to enroll their children into the neighborhood schools, but they were denied enrollment in the white schools and told to attend segregated black schools. The District Court noted that segregation in public education had a harmful effect on black children, but denied the need to desegregate schools because “the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors” in Topeka, Kansas were all equal. The District Court confirmed the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson by the Supreme Court in 1896 and upheld state laws permitting, or requiring, segregation in public education.

The battle for civil rights has deep roots in American history, and African America...

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...eclaration of Human Rights” in Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865, 3rd ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. (Boston, Wadsworth, 2012), 363-365.

4. U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483-496. (1954) in Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865, 3rd ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. (Boston, Wadsworth, 2012), 365-366.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Martin Luther King Jr., speech given to Holt Street Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, December 5, 1955, in Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865, 3rd ed. Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. (Boston, Wadsworth, 2012), 366-367.

Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde. Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865. 3rd ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012.