# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that "separate-but-equal" education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.

The ruling constitutionally sanctioned laws barring African Americans from sharing the same buses, schools and other public facilities as whites-known as "Jim Crow" laws-and established the "separate but equal" doctrine that would stand for the next six decades.

But by the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) was working hard to challenge segregation laws in public schools, and had filed lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs in states such as South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.

In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka's all-white elementary schools.

In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment, which holds that no state can "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The case went before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, which agreed that public school segregation had a "detrimental effect upon the colored children" and contributed to "a sense of inferiority," but still upheld the "separate but equal" doctrine.

BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION VERDICT

When Brown's case and four other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs. (Thirteen years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would appoint Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice.)

At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson holding the opinion that the Plessy verdict should stand. But in September 1953, before Brown v. Board of Education was to be heard, Vinson died, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced him with Earl Warren, then governor of California.

Displaying considerable political skill and determination, the new chief justice succeeded in engineering a unanimous verdict against school segregation the following year.

In the decision, issued on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place," as segregated schools are "inherently unequal." As a result, the Court ruled that the plaintiffs were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."

LITTLE ROCK NINE

In its verdict, the Supreme Court did not specify how exactly schools should be integrated, but asked for further arguments about it.

In May 1955, the Court issued a second opinion in the case (known as Brown v. Board of Education II), which remanded future desegregation cases to lower federal courts and directed district courts and school boards to proceed with desegregation "with all deliberate speed."

Though well intentioned, the Court's actions effectively opened the door to local judicial and political evasion of desegregation. While Kansas and some other states acted in accordance with the verdict, many school and local officials in the South defied it.

In one major example, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called out the state National Guard to prevent black students from attending high school in Little Rock in 1957. After a tense standoff, President Eisenhower deployed federal troops, and nine students-known as the " Little Rock Nine"- were able to enter Central High School under armed guard.

IMPACT OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION

Though the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board didn't achieve school desegregation on its own, the ruling (and the steadfast resistance to it across the South) fueled the nascent civil rights movement in the United States.

In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and would lead to other boycotts, sit-ins and demonstrations (many of them led by Martin Luther King Jr.), in a movement that would eventually lead to the toppling of Jim Crow laws across the South.

Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, backed by enforcement by the Justice Department, began the process of desegregation in earnest. This landmark piece of civil rights legislation was followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

In 1976, the Supreme Court issued another landmark decision in Runyon v. McCrary, ruling that even private, nonsectarian schools that denied admission to students on the basis of race violated federal civil rights laws.

By overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine, the Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education had set the legal precedent that would be used to overturn laws enforcing segregation in other public facilities. But despite its undoubted impact, the historic verdict fell short of achieving its primary mission of integrating the nation's public schools.

Today, more than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the debate continues over how to combat racial inequalities in the nation's school system, largely based on residential patterns and differences in resources between schools in wealthier and economically disadvantaged districts across the country.

Sources

History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment, United States Courts.
Brown v. Board of Education, The Civil Rights Movement: Volume I (Salem Press).
Cass Sunstein, "Did Brown Matter?" The New Yorker, May 3, 2004.
Brown v. Board of Education, PBS.org.
Richard Rothstein, Brown v. Board at 60, Economic Policy Institute, April 17, 2014.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that "separate-but-equal" education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

# data[].attributes.headline
How this event effects modern day events

# data[].attributes.subject
How this event effects modern day events

# data[].attributes.body
The principles created in this case are still used to this day.
FOREXCAMPLE

# data[].attributes.headline
Oliver Brown (Left) & And Linda Brown (Right)

# data[].attributes.subject
Oliver Brown (Left) & And Linda Brown (Right)

# data[].attributes.body
Oliver Brown sued the Topeka Board of Ed.

# data[].attributes.body
The African American people knew that the schools were not equal. The segregation taught African American children that they were not as good as white children.

# data[].attributes.body
Many Americans disliked the idea of mixed schools and protested against it.

# data[].attributes.body
Many schools accepted African American children into their schools, but many more were against it. For example,

# data[].attributes.body
Whites even had better drinking fountains and sometimes the water that was left over from the whites would even be the water the colored drank.

# data[].attributes.body
Thurgood Marshall was the lawyer on Oliver Brown's side

# data[].attributes.body
Even after the schools were desegregated, many other   buildings were still separate. This photo is an example of a bathroom that was designated to either whites or blacks.

# data[].attributes.headline
what is the situation that lead to the event occurring (causation)

# data[].attributes.subject
what is the situation that lead to the event occurring (causation)

# data[].attributes.body
Marshall and the people wanted full equality for blacks students at every level.

NAACP founded in 1909, was a program that   fought for  discriminating  and segregating blacks. Not only did the NAACP fight for the right, but  19 other blacks student parents also filed suit against the county's schools that segregated blacks.

Marshall's case entitled  Brown v. Education of Topeka was a consolidation of five separate lawsuits

# data[].attributes.body
This newspaper was released soon after racial segregation in schools was banned

# data[].attributes.headline
How did this event advance the civil rights movement?

# data[].attributes.subject
How did this event advance the civil rights movement?

# data[].attributes.body
Brown argued that the African American Schools were not ‘separate but equal’. Segregated schools made the kids think that white people were better than them. The court cases helped to desegregate schools. A lot of schools and white people wanted the segregation. It did not end segregation in the South. Black people still were banned from public parks, had to sit in the back of the bus and drank form ’colored only’ water fountains.

# data[].attributes.body
Oliver Brown sued the Topeka Board of Education for not letting his daughter attend Sumner Elementary School. Thurgood Marshall attacked the separate but equal claim, saying separation is unequal. The Supreme Court agreed with Marshall in a unanimous decision, and ended up banning racial segregation in schools.

# data[].attributes.headline
 Who was involved on both sides of the issue?

# data[].attributes.subject
 Who was involved on both sides of the issue?

# data[].attributes.body
Chief lawyer thurgood marshall for the colored people
Topeka Board of Education
Oliver Brown suede
Whites wanted segregation

# data[].attributes.headline
What was the Thurgood Marshall - Brown V. Board of Education?

# data[].attributes.subject
What was the Thurgood Marshall - Brown V. Board of Education?

# data[].attributes.body
On May 17, 1954 the United Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the case of Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

# data[].attributes.body
Created by: Liddie Hoare, Austin Everhart, Gabi Piccirilli, Jake Easton, Leah Villone