Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was a landmark court case that ruled against segregation in the United States school system. Brown was not the first legal challenge to segregation in education, and even after Brown was passed, people had to fight to enforce the court order to desegregate. When learning about Brown, it is important to study what came before it, what was the context of its passage, and what was the aftermath.

The first legal challenge to segregation in education was Roberts v. City of Boston (1949). Benjamin Roberts of Boston began a legal campaign to enroll his five-year-old daughter, Sarah, in a nearby school for whites. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that local elected officials had the authority to control local schools and that separate schools did not violate black students’ rights. The decision was cited in later cases to justify segregation. Black parents in Boston, however, refused to accept defeat. They organized a school boycott and statewide protests. In 1855 the Massachusetts legislature passed the country’s first law prohibiting school segregation.

Fourteenth Amendment

Section 1. 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.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Homer Plessy, who was 1/8th Black, tried to ride a "white’s only" rail car, was arrested and took his case to court. (segregation in transportation)

"The object of the [Fourteenth] Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either. Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other, and have been generally, if not universally, recognized as within the competency of the state legislatures in the exercise of their police power. . . . If the civil and political rights of both races be equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane. "

—Justice Henry Billings Brown, speaking for the majority

Basically it created the “separate but equal" doctrine, which subsequent courts would uphold. Although not specifically written in the decision, Plessy set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was used to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools.

Discrimination existed in the United States against many groups. The above photo is a picture of a segregated Mexican classroom in California.

Méndez v. Westminster (1946-1947)
By 1919, schools in Orange County, CA were segregated. Felícitas and Gonzalo Méndez sued on behalf of their three children. (4 other families joined, and it was filed all on behalf of 5 thousand Mexican students).

They argued that separate schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled in favor of the parents, and appellate courts upheld his decision. In Mendez v. Westminster, friend of the court briefs were filed by the Japanese American Citizens League, the American Jewish Congress, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP’s brief was prepared by Robert Carter, who was one of the first attorneys to use social science evidence in a civil rights case. Carter was later one of the lawyers who argued two of the cases in Brown v. Board of Education. NAACP counsel Thurgood Marshall also filed an amicus curiae brief.

Mc Cormick said: “A paramount requisite in the American system of education is social equality.”

In 1947, California Governor Earl Warren pushed through legislation ending school segregation for American Indian and Asian children as well.

Plaintiffs in Brown

Oliver Brown, the case namesake, was just one of the nearly 200 plaintiffs from five states who were part of the NAACP cases brought before the Supreme Court in 1951. The states were South Carolina, Kansas, Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C..

Thurgood Marshall

Marshall was one of the attorneys arguing the Brown case. He faced discrimination in his life. For example, he wasn’t allowed to go to Maryland law school because of race, so he went to Howard law. He joined the NAACP legal staff, which had been arguing cases regarding segregation in education. After arguing the Brown case, Marshall continued to make sure schools were enforcing integration and upholding Brown. President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall to a seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1967, and so he is the nation's first black supreme court justice. He retired in 1991.

Earl Warren

As governor of California, he pushed the CA legislature to pass laws against segregation of all races following Mendez. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Eisenhower. As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he crafted the unanimous court opinion in the Brown case. He ruled in Brown that segregation in education violated the “equal protection” and “due process” clauses of 14th amendment.

In the Brown v Board of Education (1954) opinion, Warren said:

“Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group...Any language in contrary to this finding is rejected. We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

In subsequent arguing of Brown, the Supreme Court ruled that schools had to integrate "with all deliberate speed."

This did not mean that all schools actually followed the court orders. Racism and discrimination ran deep in United States history, and many people refused to integrate.

Some schools did follow the law and integrate, and others underwent court ordered forced integration.

This was the integration of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. President Eisenhower stepped in and ordered the 101st Airborne army division to enforce the court order to integrate the schools when Governor Orval Faubus attempted to use the Arkansas national guard to stop the integration (1957-1958). Governor Faubus even closed all high schools in Little Rock during the 1958-1959 school year, in what is known as "The Lost Year," just to prevent more integration. Courts ordered the high schools opened, and integration continued, despite mass protest.

This is the famous painting entitled, "The Problem We All Live With", by Norman Rockwell. It is a depiction of Ruby Ridges, a first grade student in an elementary school in Louisiana being escorted by U.S. Marshalls for her protection from the angry anti-integration mobs.

James Meredith integrated the University of Mississippi, after the court ordered (1962) the integration. Governor Barnett attempted to block his entrance, but President Kennedy sent troops to enforce the court order.

James Hood and Vivian Malone (1963) integrate the University of Alabama, despite Governor Wallace's attempt to block the integration.

Attempts to integrate schools at all levels was not solely an issue of the 1950s and 1960s. It was not only a "Southern Problem" either....

One example is the court ordered integration of schools in California.

Crawford v. Board of Education of Los Angeles (1963-1982)

In a California state-court action seeking desegregation of the schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District the trial court, in 1970, found de jure segregation in violation of both the State and Federal Constitutions and ordered the District to prepare a desegregation plan. The plan included a component to bus students, and Bustop, a San Fernando Valley parent's group, organized people to oppose the busing of students, which really meant, to oppose integration. The district, along with groups like BUSTOP fought the case till 1982, where the courts ruled against busing students, which was the basic component of the integration plan. The court upheld the 1979 California vote on Proposition 1 which prohibited integration by busing, and passed by a 2:1 vote.

This is a picture of a 1980 rally at Reseda High School, where opponents of the integration efforts in LAUSD gathered.

Where is the United States now?

Many schools are still segregated, and many schools have resegregated. Court cases regarding school integration and segregation are still being fought today. Brown was a landmark decision decades ago, and it has still not been completely obeyed throughout the United States.