How did the brown vs the board of education begin?

Answer 1

Brown vs Board of Education is one of our nation's landmark court cases that was heard by the Supreme Court and the judgement handed down in 1954 that stated that separate public school systems (or educational facilities) for black students and white students is in fact not equal (unequal). I believe that you are asking more about the origin of the case and so I will try to shed some light on that as well. As far as I can understand things, the Brown vs Board of Education decision was larger a decision that came about from the intense years that took place prior to the case which were riddled with a firm belief of the idea of segregation. Initially the case of Plessy vs Ferguson in 1896 was grounds for a lot of the belief that segregation was indeed justifiable through its finding/decision that as long as the two races had separate but ultimately equal facilities to divide them, there was no violation of the Fourteenth Amendment through the practice of segregation (14th Amendment simply stated that no person/citizen could be unfairly treated in any legal aspect, basically it was set in place to give both black and white people the same rights---also know as the Equal Protection Clause). Now if you truly look deeper into the entire issue of segregation and equal rights among the races, there is also the matter of the Dread Scott decision which even before the equal rights initiatives took place the Scott decision boldly declared that black people residing in the nation were not citizens and could never become citizens, and ultimately that meant that they were not afforded the same rights or benefits of citizenship as others could. In that time period one has to realize that our nation was in the process of not only adjusting to the notion of slavery being over but also people were still learning how to even live among one another with a still very divided set of laws, rights, and beliefs.

I would go further into details about all of the elements that play a part in the years prior to the Brown vs Board decision, but if I did so it would probably take a lot more time and space up that ultimately might not give you a better understanding but just seem like a bunch of extra info not relevant to the question at hand. If I can help further please let me know.

Thanks and hope I helped,

onenonlycasper aka austin j.h.