The Case Commenced
Linda Brown, University Libraries, 2019
Supreme Court, Youtube, 2008
Time for Justice
September 1950, Oliver Brown walked his young daughter to her neighborhood school in Topeka, Kansas. When he tried to enroll her in the all-white Sumner School she was denied the opportunity solely based on the color of her skin. Linda's family attempted to enroll her in the school for four years which happened to be the closet school to her home. The goal was to communicate that the prior doctrine of "separate but equal" could not be equal if black children were separated.
Court was Held
First, the Brown's went to the District of Kansas Court, where they lost the decision based on the 1896 Plessy v. Fergusen Case ruling that racial segregation was not a violation of the 14th amendment. The Browns, then represented by the NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall appealed to the Supreme Court which agreed to hear the case. Finally in 1954 the federal court case was held.
Robert Carver, Thurgood Marshall, third person unknow, History, No Date
5 Cases, National Archives, 2016
Court Cases
The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined 5 cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington, D.C.). Thurgood chose the Brown case to highlight that separate was not equal because the white and black schools were in fact very close to equal. What made them not equal was simply the fact that they were separate. After the court case was won in Brown's favor this is what the judges stated, “We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the minority group of equal education opportunities? We believe that it does.”