What happened during Brown Vs Board of Education?

Answer 1

Also known as Brown Vs Topika.

In the 1950s, segregation was still a key feature of life for black Americans and they were still subject to what was known as the Jim Crow Laws

The first case to challenge segregation in education did not originate in the south. but in Topeka, a town in the mid-west state of Kansa. Linda Brown's parents wanted her to attend a neighbourhood school rather than the school for black Americans which was some distance away. Lawyers for the NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall, presented evidence to the supreme Court stating that separate education created low self-esteem and was psychologically harmful. Moreover, the evidence also pointed out that educational achievement was restricted because of this policy. The process took eighteen months and the decision was announced on 17th may 1954. Chief Justice Warren of the Supreme Court gave a closing judgement.

Some areas began to de-segregate and, by 1957, more than 300,000 black children were attending schools which has formerly been segregated. however, there were 2.4 million black southern children who were still being educated in Jim Crow schools (separated schools especially in the South, which took deliberate measures to keep separated schools. More than 100 senators and congressmen from the southern states signed the Southern manifesto, a document that opposed racial integration in education. Over the next two years, southern state legislatures passes more than 450 laws and resolutions which were aimed to prevent the Brown decision being enforced. Despite the decision of the Supreme Court Eisenhower did little to encourage integration. He was forced into action in 1957 by the events at Little Rock High School.