Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

             On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court had made its decision on the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case. The Supreme Court declared unanimously "separate facilities are inherently unequal." If facilities are separate they are essentially not the same. This point is shown in a recent case, which shows similar concern over equal opportunity as that rose in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Supreme Court case of United States vs. Virginia illustrated discrimination against women.
             It started when a young African American student in Topeka, Linda Brown, requested to attend a local all-white school in her neighborhood rather then an all-black school that was further away. The case began in 1951 when Oliver Brown, her father, sued the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education. He was suing to allow his 8-year-old daughter Linda to attend a school that only white children were allowed to attend. After numerous appeals, the case reached the Supreme Court. There a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of Brown and against segregation in America's schools.
             The landmark Plessy vs. Ferguson verdict of 1896 had held that separate but equal public facilities for white and blacks were legal. Schools were public conveniences, and Brown, therefore, was rejected. Afterward the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) became a part of the case and appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court. It was then, on May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court had made its most significant ruling. By overturning Plessy vs. Ferguson, the certain Supreme Court declared that in the area of public schooling "the doctrine of separate but equal had no place." The case ruled that segregation was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ordered that school integration go forward "with all deliberate speed." The case took apart...

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Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 20:16, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/26265.html