Brown v. Board of Education

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.

Brown was a consolidation of four cases heard the same day as a fifth, companion case (Bolling v. Sharpe), that had to be considered separately because it originated in the District of Columbia, federal territory.

The four cases consolidated underBrown:

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

Briggs v. Elliot (South Carolina)*

Davis v. County Board of Education of Prince Edward County (Virginia)

Gebhart v. Belton (Delaware)

Companion case, heard separately:

Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 US 497 (1954)

*Briggs v. Elliot, 342 US 350 (1952) originally came before the court in 1952, but the decision was vacated and the case remanded back to US District Court for disposition.

Case Citation:

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

Brown changed the ways that Education was doled out to children. Before this Supreme Court decision, Black and White children went to separate schools in many states (primarily the "south"). The Supreme Court had previously upheld this practice if the education was separate but equal. This decision determined that the education was definitely not equal, and now all public schools are integrated. It was a huge step for education and for equality.

Case Citation:

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

For more information about Brown v. Board of Education, see Related Links, below.

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

The case was related to the decision in Plessy vs Ferguson, 1896, in which the Supreme Court ruled (7-1-1) that the "separate but equal" status was legal as long as blacks were accorded services which were deemed separate but equal. It dealt with blacks not being allowed to ride in the train car set aside for whites only. The issue in Brown was whether or not separate but equal could still be used as a reason to separate blacks from whites in the schools of Topeka, Kansas. But, like Plessy, the decision had wide ranging ground breaking results for the whole nation.

The Warren Court in 1954 voted overwhelmingly that separate but equal could be neither separate nor equal and in throwing this out the law of the land was changed forever.

Unfortunately many southern cities schools became black only as white parents began private schools for their white children. This holds true even today in some situations.

Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) was a unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court.

Chief Justice

Earl Warren

Associate Justices

Hugo Black

Stanley F. Reed

Felix Frankfurter

William O. Douglas

Robert H. Jackson

Harold H. Burton

Tom C. Clark

Sherman Minton

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

Brown was argued twice: once in 1952, then again in 1953 after Chief Justice Vinson died and was succeeded by Chief Justice Earl Warren. In 1952, Davis argued the following:

• Congress established segregated schools in the District of Columbia (which is under federal control) before, during and after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, demonstrating those who initiated the Amendment did not intend it to prohibit segregation. Further, of the 30 states that had ratified the Amendment when it was adopted in 1868, 23 maintained segregated schools.
• The issue of desegregation should be a political question (left to Congress), not a judicial one.
• The Court's own precedents supported the "separate but equal" doctrine many times since the Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896) decision. (Davis cited: "...Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, Gong Lum v. Rice, Berea College v. Kentucky, Sipuel v. Board of Regents, Gaines v. Canada, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma, and there may be others for all I know, certainly this Court has spoken in the most clear and unmistakable terms to the effect that this segregation is not unlawful. Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, Gong Lum v. Rice, Berea College v. Kentucky, Sipuel v. Board of Regents, Gaines v. Canada, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma, and there may be others for all I know, certainly this Court has spoken in the most clear and unmistakable terms to the effect that this segregation is not unlawful.")
• Davis claimed the Clark's doll test was unscientific, and discussed a replication of their study conducted by another expert witness, identified only as Trager, who conducted the test on Philadelphia school children in integrated schools and found their preference for the white doll and belief that the African-American doll was bad was more extreme than the opinions of the Southern, segregated children.
• Davis quoted the opinion of W. E. B. Dubois, an African-American intellectual who opposed desegregation: "It is difficult to think of anything more important for the development of a people than proper training for their children; and yet I have repeatedly seen wise and loving colored parents take infinite pains to force their little children into schools where the white children, white teachers, and white parents despised and resented the dark child, make mock of it, neglected or bullied it, and literally rendered its life a living hell. Such parents want their children to "fight" this thing out-but, dear God, at what a cost!"

  He goes on:

  "We shall get a finer, better balance of spirit; an infinitely more capable and rounded personality by putting children in schools where they are wanted, and where they are happy and inspired, than in thrusting them into hells where they are ridiculed and hated."

• Parents should have an opportunity to be consulted and determine whether they wanted their children in an integrated school.

In 1953, Davis added the following arguments:

• Some southern school districts (for example, Clarendon, SC) were predominantly black and enjoyed newer schools and better facilities than the minority white population.
• Integration would create a situation in that district where the classes were integrated 27:3, with the majority African-American, which he didn't believe would be useful to anyone.
• Race and racial tensions had existed for "some 60 centuries," an argument he used to deny segregation was caused by, or reinforced, racism.
• Individual states and school boards should be allowed to determine for themselves whether to integrate, because they had a better understanding of community-level issues.

For more information, see Related Questions, below.
Black schools are newer and, therefore, potentially better.

The US Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional in their decision for Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954), but had no plan for implementing integration. The Court asked both sides to develop a strategy for dismantling the old educational infrastructure and addressing the logistics of integrating the schools.

The Court convened in April 1955 to hear arguments related to integration in Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 US 294 (1955), the planned second phase of the landmark civil rights case. In Brown II, the schools requested more time to make changes, preferring to phase in integration over an extended period of time. Civil rights activists wanted more rapid changes.

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.

Some school districts, including Topeka, Kansas, the city where the named case originated, responded quickly; other districts, particularly those in the South, resisted integration and were obstructionist, rather than cooperative.

The federal government under the Eisenhower administration was less than proactive about enforcing the Brown decisions on a national basis, only intervening in isolated cases (such as the Little Rock Nine). This allowed the process to extend more than a decade in some areas, until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that finally assisted the progress of civil rights.

Case Citation:

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

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

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

The US Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine legitimized by the Court's earlier decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896). The concept of "separate but equal" was used to justify segregating people by race.

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

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

School Segregation

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racially separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. This case led to the desegregation of public schools in the U.S.

The landmark case that desegregated schools was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a 1954 case in which the Supreme Court Justices unanimously ruled segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Earl Warren, in writing the Court opinion, declared "separate but equal is inherently unequal," because it violates the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. This overturned the 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, which held the concept of "separate but equal" was constitutional.

Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537 (1896)

The state of Louisiana passed a law requiring separate railroad coach cars for African-Americans and Caucasians. Plessy, who was seven-eighths Caucasian, took a seat in the "whites-only" car, refused to move to the "black" car, and was subsequently arrested.

The case was upheld in the lower courts, then petitioned to the US Supreme Court for review in light of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

The Court, in an opinion delivered by Justice Brown, held that state-sanctioned segregation was constitutional, as long as the separate facilities were equal. As precedent, Brown cited both the Civil Rights Cases, 109 US 3 (1883), which determined the 14th Amendment applied only to states, but not to private individuals or businesses, and the fact that Washington D.C. public schools, under the rule of federal government, was already practicing segregation in education. Justice Brown further concluded that segregation in public accommodations did not constitute discrimination.

Justice Harlan, in an impassioned and prophetic lone dissent, wrote (in part):

"In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case. It was adjudged in that case that the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country and sold as slaves were not included nor intended to be included under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and could not claim any of the rights and privileges which that instrument provided for and secured to citizens of the United States; that, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they were "considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them."

and

"The recent amendments of the Constitution [referring to the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments], it was supposed, had eradicated these principles from our institutions. But it seems that we have yet, in some of the States, a dominant race -- a superior class of citizens, which assumes to regulate the enjoyment of civil rights, common to all citizens, upon the basis of race. The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution, by one of which the blacks of this country were made citizens of the United States and of the States in which they respectively reside, and whose privileges and immunities, as citizens, the States are forbidden to abridge.

"Sixty millions of whites are in no danger from the presence here of eight millions of blacks. The destinies of the two races in this country are indissolubly linked together, and the interests of both require that the common government of all shall not permit the seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law. What can more certainly arouse race hate, what more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which, in fact, proceed on the ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens. That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana."

and

"The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude [in violation of the 13th Amendment] wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

The majority opinion gave rise to the "separate but equal" doctrine that invaded nearly every aspect of African-Americans' lives. Plessy represented the South's reaction to, and contravention of, the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Court's decision gave tacit permission to the establishment of Jim Crow laws, which violated the civil rights of African-Americans in a way not anticipated by the Constitution.

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

Brown was a consolidation of five cases addressing racial discrimination inherent in the "separate but equal" doctrine. The NAACP argued that prohibiting African-Americans from attending then-all-white schools was de jure (legalized) discrimination prohibited by the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

The question before the Court: "Does the segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprive the minority children of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment?"

In a unanimous decision, the Warren Court concluded that the equalization of tangible factors, such as facilities and instructional materials, did not foster equality because intangible factors, such as segregation itself, was stigmatizing and created an inferior class of citizens.

Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) effectively gutted the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896), and established that "separate but equal" is not equal.

Although Brown began the process of integration, it did not effect immediate change. The Court convened a year later to devise a practical method of facilitating desegregation, a topic not addressed until Brown II (Brown v. Board of Education, 349 US 294 (1955).

In Brown II, the Court's instructions were vague and left too much leeway for school districts to delay action. The individual cases were remanded back to their District Courts for orders and enforcement (the US Supreme Court has no enforcement power), with the instruction to "admit the parties to these cases to public schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed."

Unfortunately, the federal government did little to enforce the Supreme Court ruling until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

While society has changed dramatically since Plessy and even since Brown, human nature has not. The quest for equality is an ongoing struggle that demands vigilance and effort from all who support its goals.

The original class action suit filed in US District Court against the Topeka, Kansas, Board of Education comprised thirteen named plaintiffs on behalf of their twenty-one children. Oliver Brown was chosen as the nominal plaintiff because the NAACP legal team believed it would give them a strategic advantage.

The plaintiffs, listed alphabetically:

1. Darlene Brown
2. Oliver L. Brown
3. Lena M. Carper
4. Sadie Emmanuel
5. Marguerite Emerson
6. Shirla Fleming
7. Mrs. Andrew (Zelma) Henderson
8. Shirley Hodison
9. Mrs. Richard (Maude) Lawton
10. Alma Lewis
11. Iona Richardson
12. Vivian Scales
13. Lucinda Todd

Case Citation (District Court):

Brown, et al v. Board of Education of Topeka, 98 F. Supp. 797 (D. Kan. 1951)

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

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

The Supreme Court declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, which was intended to bar school districts from maintaining separate schools for African-American and white children. The actual order to integrate wasn't released until the decision in Brown v. Board of Education II, (1955).

The Supreme Court also addressed segregation in public schools in a number of later cases, as districts attempted to evade integration through restructuring their districts, issuing private school vouchers, and using other methods that the US Supreme Court had to prohibit explicitly.

Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) was initiated by the NAACP in 1950, in Topeka, Kansas. The case was part of an organized plan to fight segregation in public schools across the nation. The NAACP filed a class action suit on in the name of Oliver Brown and twelve other African-American parents on behalf of their 21 children, who were denied enrollment at nearby "white" schools in September 1950.

In February 1951, NAACP attorney Robert Carter filed a discrimination suit in the US District Court for the District of Kansas. The case was heard by a three-judge panel in June of that year. The District Court judges held there was "no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination" in the (partially integrated) Topeka, Kansas school system, and dismissed the case.

In June 1952, the Supreme 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). Oral arguments were originally scheduled for October, but were postponed until December so the justices could add two additional cases to the suit.

The attorneys argued their cases on December 9-11, 1952, but the justices asked attorneys from both sides to write briefs of their opinions on whether Congress had intended the Constitution to provide for segregated schools. The case was scheduled for reargument in December of 1953.

Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, who presided over the first arguments, died in September 1953, and was succeed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, former Governor of California. The case was reargued December 7-9, 1953.

Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the court's unanimous decision on May 17, 1954, declaring segregation in education was a violation of the students' Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of Equal Protection under the law.

Case Citation:

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

Brown was originally argued before the US Supreme Court on December 9, 1952.

After hearing both sides, the justices decided they wanted opposing counsel to write supplemental briefs answering five questions related to whether Congress had school segregation in mind when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.

The case was reargued on December 8, 1953; the Court released its opinion on May 17, 1954.

Case Citation:

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

For more information, see Related Questions, below.

Brown v. Board of Education, (1954) declared that segregation in the school systems was unconstitutional.

With this decision, the Supreme Court put an end to the pretense that "separate" could be assured of being "equal" (as established in Plessy v. Ferguson) and thereby struck down all laws mandating racially-segregated educational facilities; shortly following this was a series of Civil Rights Acts ending de jure segregation more generally, along with the civil-rights movement for active integration toward racial harmony.

More Information:

The Supreme Court of the United States, in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) held that "separate but equal" public facilities were not unconstitutional according to the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause. There were obvious moral problems with this ruling. In much of the US South, African-Americans were treated as second-class citizens, much like South African blacks were treated in apartheid South Africa. Although technically all blacks in the United States were given access to the same kinds of facilities as whites, they were prohibited from using the "white-only" facilities which almost always were far superior in quality.

The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Topeka Kansas Board of Education et al. (1954) held that separate facilities, in education, were "inherently unequal" in that they essentially caused black schoolchildren to be stigmatized, psychologically, in being prohibited from attending public schools reserved only for whites. This, the majority argued, made "separate but equal" unequal in de facto terms.

Although some have criticized this decision on the psychological argument, it was a landmark case that essentially overturned the 1896 Plessy decision of "separate but equal".

Since the Supreme Court operates on the rule of precedent- where one decision is used in future decisions that have similar Constitutional implications- Brown paved the way for whole-scale desegregation of the South (and some parts of the North as well). After Brown a succession of cases, and finally Congressional legislation with the Civil Rights Laws passed in the mid-1960s, forbade segregation in first public, and later private facilities. It all started with Brown.

Case Citation:

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