Oliver Brown and School Segregations

Oliver Brown was a man who noticed that school segregations were not fair so he fought for what he believed in. This case started out in Topeka, Kansas because Brown’s daughter didn’t like the long route in order to attend her school yet she didn’t understand the reason since there was a school closer by. Her father decided to take matters into his own hands since he felt that this was unfair. The name of the girl was Linda Brown and she was denied access to attend the schools closer to her house.

In 1951, Oliver Brown went against the school board in this town. In his lawsuit, he stated how the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the 14th Amendment were being disobeyed because young students were being separated based on their race. The clause and the amendment are supposed to guarantee that every United States citizen has the same opportunities, rights, privileges, and protections. Brown knew that the different schools were not fair so he wanted to argue for a change. The case was small in the beginning with just going to a local court and it was dismissed. The local court felt the schools were equal enough yet they really weren’t so Oliver kept fighting. Brown was in contact with the NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which helped him bring his problem to a higher court in society. The NAACP and Brown appealed this case because they knew that they were fighting for something greater than just one girl walking far to school.

In 1952, four other cases along with Browns were all challenges the separation of races in school. The cases all had to deal with the same topic, so they were brought together to form Brown vs. Board of Education. Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. all were dealing with this issue. Thurgood Marshall was apart of the NAACP to testify this case. He gathered evidence for the Supreme Court about how the segregation of schools affected students of color. Thurgood Marshall heard about a doll test that two psychologists named Mamie and Kenneth Clark conducted. When he knew of this he asked the Clark’s to help out with this case. The results of the study showed that one case had 10 out of 16 African American kids tested felt that the lighter colored doll was the “nice” doll when comparing it to a darker skin toned doll. Kenneth Clark explained that since most of the African American kids choose the lighter colored doll over their similar skin colored doll that the explanation must have to deal with how the society like schools were giving a negative stereotype about their race.

During the Brown case, Earl Warren became a new chief justice who was against segregation. He replaced Fred M. Vinson after he passed away and he was in favor to end segregation. With this he helped an unanimous vote for supporting Brown. The conclusion explained how the Equal Protection Clause and 14th Amendment were being broken because of segregation in public schools. Finally on the 17 of May in 1954, the Supreme Court announced that the “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and student could then be mixed in no matter what race.

Did you like this example?

676

36