Over a half a century ago, years before my very own existence, a rift in history took place. A rift so great it would affect the lives of many persons for as long as life breathed it breathes into the veins of existence. This rift was the decision passed down by the Supreme Court in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education. The Brown v. Board of Education actually consisted of five different cases. The first case was Briggs v. Elliot. This case involved thirty black parents from a South Carolina school district who were determined to improve educational facilities for their children. The groups began organizing in 1947 with the help of local black ministers and the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP. They complained about the poor quality of buildings, the lack of adequate transportation and inadequate teacher salaries (Ogletree 4). Roderick W. Elliot, the defendant in the case, sawmills owner and the chairman of the board of trustees of School District no. 22, made no attempts to improve the learning conditions for black students.
             In the case, Brown v. Board of Education, black parents filed similar complaints. After years of negotiations with the Topeka school board, the parents sued to desegregate the school system (Ogletree 4). Linda Brown walked a mile daily to attend her elementary school. Her father Oliver Brown wanted the segregation of the schools to end so that his daughter would not have to attend an inferior school far away from her home (Davis). Another case was Davis v. County School Board. The plaintiffs in the case charged that Virginia's segregated school system violated the federal constitution and/or refused to spend sufficient money to upgrade the substandard black schools. The case, Gebhard v. Belton, involved a little girl named Ethel Louise Belton and other black students living in suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware. Their complaints were that they had to commute eighteen miles to attend their high schoo...