Image courtesy of SMBS Teen Press
Remembering the Struggle
60 Years Later: Brown v. Board of Education
Where did Brown come from?
 Dred Scott v. Sandford
 In 1857, the United States Supreme Court decided that African
Americans were not citizens according to the U.S. Constitution and did
not have any of the rights or privileges guaranteed by the Constitution.
 This case involved a man born into slavery who travelled to free portions
of the country and challenged his status as a slave when he returned to
the slave state of Missouri to find his family.
 The Supreme Court decided that he was the property of Sandford and
had never been a free man.
 Many scholars believe that this case helped set the stage for the Civil
War.
Where did Brown come from?
 Plessy v. Ferguson
 In this case, decided in 1896, the Supreme Court decided that the Civil
War Amendments did not require racial integration of public
accommodations or other public spaces.
 The Civil War Amendments, also known as the Reconstruction
Amendments, are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments to the United States Constitution.
 This case was specifically about whether or not blacks and whites could
be forced to sit in separate railway cars.
 The Supreme Court determined that as long as the separate facilities
were “equal” it was Constitutional to keep the races separated.
The Fourteenth Amendment
 “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
 Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, United States Constitution
 Adopted 1868
Brown v. Board of Education
394 U.S. 294 (1955)
Setting the Stage: The Facts
 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas began as six cases,
brought by parents on behalf of their children in coordination with
the NAACP.
 Who were they?
 Oliver and Darlene Brown, Lena Carper, Sadie Emmanuel, Marguerite
Emerson, Shirley Fleming, Zelma Henderson, Shirley Hodison, Maude
Lawton, Alma Lewis, Iona Richardson, and Lucinda Todd
 Parents tried to enroll their children in their closest neighborhood
school in 1951, which were all-white schools.
 Each student was denied enrollment and forced to attend the
closest all-black school.
Setting the Stage: The Court
 The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Fred Vinson, heard the case
for the first time in 1953 but was unable to decide the issue.
 The Court was divided over the issue of segregation and the “separate
but equal” doctrine.
 The Court asked to re-hear the case in the fall of 1953, with a special
emphasis on the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
 Chief Justice Vinson died of a heart attack in September 1953, and
Justice Felix Frankfurter requested that the case be re-heard to
allow time for the new Chief Justice, Earl Warren, to build a
unanimous consensus on the case.
The Case
 Kansas was unique among the six cases: the lower court had found
no contention of gross inferiority of the segregated school, and that
the schools were substantially equal.
 This meant that the issue before the Supreme Court was only that
the idea of “separate but equal” itself was unconstitutional.
 Should the justices follow the earlier cases and keep segregation in
schools, or should they start a new policy and stop segregated
education?
Key Player: Chief Justice Earl Warren
Appointed by President Eisenhower to
replace the late Chief Justice Fred Vinson.
Former republican governor of California
and vice presidential candidate with
Thomas Dewey.
He convinced the other justices that a
unanimous decision was necessary to send
a strong message to the public.
Image courtesy of pbs.org
Key Player: Thurgood Marshall
Civil rights lawyer who knew segregation firsthand.
He attended all-black schools growing up in
Baltimore, and was denied entry into the law
school at the University of Maryland.
He attended Howard University instead, and two
years after graduating he — with help from Howard
Law School dean and mentor Charles Hamilton
Houston — won a lawsuit forcing the University of
Maryland to integrate its law school.
Chief Counsel for the NAACP who argued the
Brown case to the United States Supreme Court.
Later appointed to the United States Supreme
Court to become the first African American to serve
on the Court.
Image courtesy of Keystone/Getty Images
Key Players: The Children in the Case
(Left to Right: Vicki Henderson, Donald
Henderson, Linda Brown, James Emanuel,
Nancy Todd, and Katherine Carper)
Linda Brown continued to fight
segregation as an adult. She worked with
the ACLU to reopen the case in 1979,
because the Topeka public schools were
still segregated. The courts agreed and
eventually three new schools were built as
part of integration efforts in the early ‘90s.
Photo by Carl Iwasaki/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Key Player: Oliver Brown
Oliver Brown joined the case because his
daughter Linda, a third grader, had to walk
past an all-white elementary school, through
busy intersections, and cross railroad tracks
to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe
Elementary, an all-black elementary school.
Brown was 32 at the time the suit against the
school district was first brought. He was a
minister and a welder. He died at age 43.
Brown, as the only male parent of any of the
children in the case, was designated the lead
plaintiff, so the case bore his name.
Image courtesy of The Brown Foundation
“To separate them from others of similar age and
qualifications solely because of their race
generates feelings of inferiority as to their status
in the community that may affect their hearts
and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone.”
-- Chief Justice Earl Warren, Brown v. Board of Education
The Result
 In a unanimous 9-0 decision written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the
Supreme Court held that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
 “…in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but
equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal. Therefore, we hold that plaintiffs and others similarly
situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of
the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of
the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Brown: The Aftermath
What happened after the Supreme Court made its decision?
Remember this photo?
The “Little Rock Nine” being escorted into school by members of the National
Guard in 1957.
Struggle for Civil Rights
Jim Crow Laws
Little Rock Nine
 Enacted between 1876 and
1965 (Brown was decided in
1954).
 In 1957, nine students enrolled in
Little Rock Central High School, a
segregated all-white school.
 State and local laws that
mandated different forms of
racial discrimination and
segregation.
 Officially overruled by the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
 They were initially prevented from
entering the school by the
governor of Arkansas.
 President Eisenhower ordered the
National Guard to escort them
into the school.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oodolEmUg2g
Video: Jim Crow Laws
http://classroomclips.org/video/785
Image courtesy of pbs.org
Further Cases
 Brown II, Brown III
 Cooper v. Aaron
 (1958) Federal enforcement of desegregation
 Boynton v. Virginia
 (1960) Outlawed racial segregation in public transportation
 Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
 (1964) Upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning racial discrimination
in public places and public accommodations
Activity: What does “equal” mean?
 You have each been given a piece of colored paper with a situation
and a question.
 Gather with your classmates who have the same color paper to talk
about that question for 4-5 minutes.
 After your discussion, take a minute to write down your thoughts
on your sheet of paper.
 Remember the guiding question: Does treating people equally
mean treating them the same?
Wrap-Up & Final Thoughts
Sometimes equal is not the same. Sometimes equal is not
“fair.” However, discrimination occurs when people are
treated differently because they are a member of a group:
racial, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation.
How far have we come since Brown? Is segregation in
schools still a problem? What kind of segregation is it?