Brown Vs Board of Education Case

Two of the major lawyers that was on the case wereThurgood Marshall and Earl Warrenn. Thurgood Marshall was the lead lawyer in the Brown vs Eductaion case and many cases like it fighting for equal rights for Amfrican Americans. The people who started it all were Oliver Brown and Linda Brown. Oliver Brown was the father of Linda Brown and was the first name on the case because they thought a mans name would get more respect.

Daughter of Oliver Brown; had to walk six blocks and cross the Rock Island Railroad switching yard to get to the bus to Monroe School, her bus ride was a half an hour and if the bus was on time they reached Monroe before it opened and had too stand outside until nine Robert Carter was a brilliant and experienced black lawyer that worked under Thurgood Marshall.

Jack Greensburg a bright young Jewish lawyer who joined the Fund too work under Thurgood Marshall. John Scott and Charles Scott were the local NAACP lawyers in Topeka. The “colored’ hotel that Carter and Greensburg checked into in the Jim Crow town was terribly dirty and shabby; when Greensburg pulled the light cord in the bathroom part of the ceiling fell down; they then quickly arranged to stay in the home of one of the members of the Topeka NAACP.

Lousia Holt and Professor Hugh Speer were two of the main people too testify. Lousia was an assistant psychology professor at the University of Kansas testified that legal segregation would cause black children too feel a sense of inferiority and that it would affect their motivation for learning. Professor Hugh Speer of the Universisty of Kansas testified that “The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum can not be equal under segragation”

In the cases Belton v. Gebhart and Bulah v. Gebhart which took place in Delaware attorney Redding was ready to challenge the notion of not permitting integrated schools. Both Sarah Bulah and the parents from Claymont including Ethel Belton were prepared to sue in order to change state law. Their case would name the State Board of Education as the principal defendant. In this cases the board members were specifically charged. The first name among the members was Francis B. Gebhart. Thus where the cases got their name from Brown v. Board of Education took place in Kansas and first started as an individual case after Linda Brown was rejected entry into an all white school in her neighborhood her father Oliver Brown seeked help with the NAACP too get the case heard. It later became a joint case to go in front of the Supreme Court where six students were represented; Vicki Henderson, Donald Henderson, Linda Brown, James Emanuel, Nancy Todd and Katherine Carper. The councel of the board of education Lester Goodell defended the schookl segragation as “simply a question of law”. Carter and his team of lawyers planned too bring in expert witnesses too testify that segragation not only meant unequal facilities but it wounded children psychologically for life.

The case Bolling v. Sharp in Washington, D.C.was filed in 1951 in U.S. District court. This case was named for Spottswood Thomas Bolling, one of the children who accompanied Gardner Bishop to Sousa High. He was among those denied admission based solely on race. Although unsuccessful, Nabritt trusted his concept of an all out attack on segregation. The Bolling case would later meet with success as one of the cases combined under Brown v. Board of Education.

In the Briggs v. Elliot case in South Carolina Rev. J. A. DeLaine was teaching in St. Paul Rural Primary School and also serving several small churches as an A.M.E. Minister. Initially schools for African Americans in Clarendon County began in their churches and gradually moved to separate buildings. For these children and their parents the issue was bus-transportation to school. Rev. DeLaine approached Clarendon County school officials but failed to secure school buses. African American children did not have buses, they had to walk, sometimes as far as eight miles each way to school. School officials justified their refusal by claiming that since the African American community did not pay much in taxes it would be unfair to expect white citizens to provide transportation for African American school children. Even after a letter writing campaign launched by Rev. DeLaine yielded no assistance from state educational officials, because of the urgent need African American parents collected donations within their community and purchased a second-hand school bus but eventually the continual repairs on the bus proved to be too costly for the parents. This did not stop Rev.DeLaine though and by 1949 he had obtained enough signatures to file another case, the national office of the NAACP agreed to sponsor their case, it would give Clarendon’s African Americans not just buses but would seek educational equality.

In May of 1950 with the help of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the case of Briggs v. Elliott was filed. Two months later, the plaintiffs attorneys moved from simply pursuing equalization of facilities and obtaining buses, to attacking segregation. The court ruled against the petitioners and ordered schools to be equalized, focusing on equalization and ignoring the broader question of the constitutionality of segregation. The states action resulted in an NAACP appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, it then became part of the Brown vs Board of Education case. The Briggs case caused an extreme reaction, all of the petitioners suffered severe hardships for their courage. Harry Briggs was fired from his job, Annie Gibson lost her job as a motel maid and her husband lost land that had been in his family for eight decades, Rev. DeLaine saw his home burned to the ground, and Federal Judge Walter Waring, who sided with the petitioners concerns, was forced to leave the state by a joint resolution of the South Carolina House of Representatives.

The case of Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County in Virginia originated on April 23, 1951 when a student strike organized largely by Barbara Johns began. The school principal Jones was called away by a false claim of racial problems at the bus station downtown, with him gone the students assembled under pretense of a school sanctioned gathering and Barbara spoke of the plan to strike. The strike amounted to students walking out of school with instructions, from strike leadership, not to leave the school grounds. Some of the students were given signs to carry that expressed their goal of better facilities. With the strike underway Barbara Johns and classmate Carrie Stokes sought legal counsel from the NAACP in Richmond. The students received a response in the form of a commitment by NAACP attorney, Oliver Hill agreeing to meet with them. The strike lasted ten days and Hill promised that action would be taken on their behalf, and with that promise the students returned to school on May 7, 1951.

After a month of legal maneuvering a suit was filed in Federal Court by Oliver Hill’s colleague, Spottswood Robinson siting the students complaint. Surprisingly when the case was filed it did not carry the name of Barbara Johns as its lead plaintiff it was by happenstance that the first student listed was a ninth grade girl the daughter of a local farmer, her name was Dorothy Davis. The case was then filed as Dorothy E. Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. After filing this case Spottswood Robinson immediately traveled to South Carolina where the case of Briggs v. Elliot was about to be heard in another Federal Court. Two of the major lawyers that was on the case wereThurgood Marshall and Earl Warrenn. Thurgood Marshall was the lead lawyer in the Brown vs Eductaion case and many cases like it fighting for equal rights for Amfrican Americans. The people who started it all were Oliver Brown and Linda Brown. Oliver Brown was the father of Linda Brown and was the first name on the case because they thought a mans name would get more respect.

Daughter of Oliver Brown; had to walk six blocks and cross the Rock Island Railroad switching yard to get to the bus to Monroe School, her bus ride was a half an hour and if the bus was on time they reached Monroe before it opened and had too stand outside until nine
Robert Carter was a brilliant and experienced black lawyer that worked under Thurgood Marshall.Jack Greensburg a bright young Jewish lawyer who joined the Fund too work under Thurgood Marshall. John Scott and Charles Scott were the local NAACP lawyers in Topeka. The “colored’ hotel that Carter and Greensburg checked into in the Jim Crow town was terribly dirty and shabby; when Greensburg pulled the light cord in the bathroom part of the ceiling fell down; they then quickly arranged to stay in the home of one of the members of the Topeka NAACP.

Lousia Holt and Professor Hugh Speer were two of the main people too testify. Lousia was an assistant psychology professor at the University of Kansas testified that legal segregation would cause black children too feel a sense of inferiority and that it would affect their motivation for learning. Professor Hugh Speer of the Universisty of Kansas testified that “The Topeka curriculum or any school curriculum can not be equal under segragation”

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