the Board of Education
The photograph of Linda Brown and her
mother were taken after the U.S.
Supreme Court decided the Brown v.
Board of Education Topeka, Kansas Case.
They are sitting on the steps of the Court
This lesson is about the two Delaware
cases that were a part of that court
decision.
Belton v. Gebhart
and
Bulah v. Gebhart
From www.teachingamericanhistorymd.net
FOCUS QUESTION
What do we mean by
the term equity
and
What does It allow the
court to do?
From the National Park Service
Background on Cases
Belton v. Gebhart
“There were two separate cases in Delaware, but the issues were
identical. In Suburban Claymont, about nine miles north of
Wilmington along the Delaware River, the attractive grade school
and high school accommodated 400 or so students on a landscaped
fourteen-acre site with well-equipped playing fields and carefully
tended ornamental shrubbery. Negro children were not allowed to
attend it. Instead, they had to take a bus to downtown
Wilmington’s venerable Howard High School, an unlovely structure
bounded by factories, warehouses, and badly deteriorating
tenements. The trip took most of the colored children from
Claymont fifty or more minutes each way. Howard, with nearly
1,300 pupils, had a pupil-teacher ratio of 24:1 - one-third higher
than the ratio at Claymont - and nearly 60 percent of the Claymont
faculty members held masters’ degrees compared with fewer than
40 percent at Howard. Claymont offered several subjects
unavailable at Howard, such as public speaking, economics,
Spanish, and trigonometry, and a wide range of extracurricular
activities, such as an art club, a driver’s -education group, a student
newspaper and a square-dancing group, not offered at Howard…
Everything considered, the trip into Wilmington seemed hardly
worth it to Ethel Belton and seven other Negro parents of Claymont
who brought the matter to the attention of Louis Redding in
Wilmington in March of 1951. Redding urged the Claymont parents
to ask the State Board of Education to admit their children to the
local high school. They tried and were turned down.”
Bulah v. Gebhart
“In the autumn of 1950, Sarah Bulah got it into her head that there
was something basically unjust about the fact that a bus passed
right by her front door to take the white children of Hockessin to
their pretty little school up on the hill while she had to drive her
daughter, Shirley, two miles to the old one-room schoolhouse for
colored youngsters down in the village..... It was not right. If there
was a bus for white children, there should be one for colored
children. Or maybe the school bus for whites that went right by her
door could stop for Shirley. ...Sarah Bulah wrote the Department of
Public Instruction for the State of Delaware in Dover. Weeks passed
. Nothing happened. ...Finally she got a firm letter from the state
superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction that said
that the State Board of Education had reviewed her case and
decided that “ bus transportation is an integral part of a school
program and that since the State Constitution requires separate
educational facilities for colored and white children, your children
may not ride on a bus serving a white school.” Delaware, in other
words, was telling Sarah Bulah that colored children were not
entitled to what white children were. She went to see Louis
Redding
Simple Justice, by Richard Klug
Vintage Books, 1977, pages 433 - 435.
Questions for Student Handout One
In pairs, students should read about the two cases,
discuss what happened and answer the
following questions:
1. What happened in the two cases?
2. How are the issues identical?
3. Who are the parties in the case?
4. What facts are important?
5. Why did the people involved act the way they did?
6. What Constitutional right would you argue is
being violated if you were Louis Redding.
Louis L. Redding, Esquire
Comparison of the Schools
used with permission of the Delaware State Archives, from their digital records
Hockessin Public School
Hockessin Colored School
Analysis of Historical Data
Example: Defense Opening
Statement in Belton
List arguments to support positions.
Defense:
Judicial fiat
Imposed upon people against their will
Heritage, tradition, government
sanction
Realities, not accepted by people
Constitution of state and nation
May make situation worse
Plaintiff
Segregation harmed the children as
well as the community
Segregation whether practiced by
custom or law, seriously impaired the
mental health of the children
Segregation most virulent when
practices by the state
Segregation challenged the ethical
foundations of the state
Student Handout Five: Belton v. Gebhart,
An Excerpt from Judge Seitz’s Opinion
“I now consider whether the facilities of the two institutions are separate but equal, within the requirements
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Are the separate facilities and educational
opportunities offered these Negro plaintiffs, and those similarly situated, “equal” in the Constitutional sense,
to those available at Claymont High to white children, similarly situated? The answer to this question is often
much more difficult than it appears, because many of the factors to be considered are not just susceptible of
mathematical evaluation; e.g., aesthetic considerations. Moreover, and of real importance, the United States
Supreme Court has not yet decided what should be done if a Negro school being compared with a white
school is inferior in some respects and superior in others. It is easy, as courts do, to talk about the necessity
for finding substantial equity. But, under this approach, how is one to deal with a situation where, as here,
the mental and physical health services at the Negro school are superior to those offered at the white school,
while the teacher load at the Negro school is not only substantially heavier than that at the white school, but
often exceeds the State announced educationally desirable maximum teacher-pupil ratio. The answer, it
seems to me is this: Where the facilities or educational opportunities available to the Negro are, as to any
substantial factor, inferior to those available to white children similarly situated, the Constitutional principal
of “separate but equal” is violated, even though the State may point to other factors as to which the Negro
school is superior. I reach this conclusion because I do not believe that a court can say that the substantial
factor as to which the Negro school is inferior will not adversely affect the educational progress of at least
some of those concerned. Moreover, evaluating the unlike factors is unrealistic. If this is a harsh test, then I
answer that a State which divides its citizens should pay the price”
Power Point 3D
How the Cases Flowed
through the Courts
Description:
The case started in Federal Court and
was returned to a State Court. The
State Supreme Court agreed with the
State Court (Chancery Court) The
State of Delaware appealed the case
to the U.S. Supreme Court where it
was joined to other similar cases and
Named for Linda Brown, the Plaintiff
in the Kansas case.
Questions:
What would have happened if the
State of Delaware had not appealed
the case to the Supreme Court?
U.S. Supreme Court affirms the Delaware Courts opinion, ordering the immediate
admission of the plaintiffs to the public schools.

U.S. Supreme Court decides that segregation of students on racial grounds is
unconstitutional in May 1954 and requests further arguments to help formulate
decrees.

U.S. Supreme Court holds two arguments on the six cases combined in Brown, one in
1952 and one in 1953.

U.S. Supreme Court accepts cases and joins the cases to Brown v. Board of Education
from Kansas and cases from South Carolina, Virginia and
the District of Columbia.

State of Delaware appeals cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.

State of Delaware appeals the case to the Supreme Court of Delaware.

Cases moved to Delaware Chancery Court and
decided in favor of the Plaintiffs in April 1952.

Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart filed in
U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Who was Responsible for Implementing the
Court’s Decision
What officials or agencies are
Included in your documents?
What’s the source of their
Responsibility for implementing
The Court’s decision in Brown?
Elected State-wide
Appointed by the
Governor
What steps did they take to meet
These Responsibilities?
This chart is based on material from Foundations of Democracy: Middle School and
Above and is used with permission of the Center for Civic Education, 1996, Calabasas,
California.
Elected by
the people
In the school district