How long did it take to desegregate white and black schools after Brown v. Board of Education went to the US Supreme Court?

Answer 1

Some schools integrated immediately, but others resisted desegregation in various ways until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ten years later. The Civil Rights Acts are Federal Laws that made it easier to enforce the Supreme Court's pro-civil rights decisions.

Schools never became fully desegregated. Although the US Supreme Court overturned de jure, or legal segregation, the United States still has de facto (in fact, but not in law) segregation in many places due to economic and housing conditions, particularly in urban areas.

Answer 2

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954)

The NAACP began recruiting plaintiffs to fight segregation in the Topeka, Kansas, elementary schools in 1949 or 1950. In all, they represented 13 adults and 21 children, including Oliver Brown and his his daughter Linda, who wanted the legal right to send their children to their local elementary, Sumner, which was segregated and white.

The case was initiated in 1950, and moved through the lower courts for two years before the Supreme Court granted plaintiffs' petition for writ of certiorari on October 8, 1952. The Court combined Brown with a South Carolina school segregation case, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., and noted there were additional cases in appellate court that were likely to be added later (three more were added, for a total of five).

Thurgood Marshall, Chief Counsel for the NAACP, first argued the case on December 9, 1952, but was compelled to repeat his argument a year later, on December 8, 1953, because the Justices required the lawyers write briefs of their opinions on whether Congress had intended the Constitution to provide for segregated schools.

Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the court's unanimous verdict on May 17, 1954, declaring segregation in education a violation of the students' 14th Amendment guarantee of Equal Protection under the law. This ruling lead to desegregation and set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

From active planning to initial trial and through the appeals process, the Brown case took approximately five years to reach conclusion.

Answer 3

Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 US 294 (1955)

The primary criticism against the Warren Court in its decision for Brown II was the lack of time frame and concrete guidelines in which to effect integration. The Supreme Court attempted to forge a compromise and issued an order for US District Courts to oversee creation of racially nondiscriminatory school districts "with all deliberate speed," indicating an expectation of diligent haste, but leaving the time frame vague, open to interpretation, and more difficult to enforce.

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