Brown v. Board of Education: A Timeline of Landmark Events in the Fight for Educational Equality
The Brown v. Board of Education case stands as a watershed moment in American history, marking a significant turning point in the struggle for racial equality, particularly in the realm of education. This article provides a detailed timeline of the events leading up to and following this landmark Supreme Court decision, highlighting the key legal challenges, social changes, and ongoing efforts to achieve true educational equity.
The Foundation of Segregation: Plessy v. Ferguson
For much of the 60 years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the United States had been dominated by racial segregation. The legal basis for segregation was established in 1896 with the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision. Homer A. Plessy challenged an 1890 Louisiana law that required separate train cars for African Americans and White Americans. The Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional, allowing states to segregate public facilities as long as they were deemed equal in quality. Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing the majority opinion, stated that the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social, as distinguished from political, equality. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.
However, Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter in Plessy, argued that forced segregation of the races stamped Black people with a badge of inferiority, stating, "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." This dissenting opinion would later become a crucial argument in the Brown v. Board of Education case.
Early Challenges to Segregation
Despite the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, the fight against racial segregation continued. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, became a leading force in the legal battle against Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination.
1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Supreme Court held that Black people, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States. The 14th Amendment later overruled this decision.
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1865: Freedmen's Bureau Established: The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. The first African American schools were set up under the direction of the Freedmen’s Bureau. One of those schools -Howard University -would eventually train and graduate the majority of the legal team that overturned Plessy v.
Black Codes: "Black Codes" was the name given to laws passed by southern governments established during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. These laws imposed severe restrictions on freedmen, such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on juries, and limiting their right to testify against white men.
1875: Civil Rights Act: In March, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, prohibiting discrimination in inns, theaters, and other places of public accommodation. However, Black people largely disappeared from juries in the South.
Florida: Florida was the first state to enact a statute requiring segregation in places of public accommodation.
The NAACP's Legal Strategy
From 1935 to 1938, Charles Hamilton Houston led the legal arm of the NAACP, developing a strategy to attack Jim Crow laws in education. Houston, along with Thurgood Marshall, focused on demonstrating the inequalities in segregated schools, paving the way for future legal challenges. After Houston returned to private practice in 1938, Marshall became head of the Fund and used it to argue the cases of Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education.
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Houston’s rationale for attacking segregated law schools was largely two-pronged. First, the establishment of separate but equal law school facilities for Black and White students would become too costly for the states.
Key Cases Leading to Brown v. Board of Education:
1936: Pearson v. Murray (Md.): Thurgood Marshall challenged the University of Maryland School of Law's rejection of Black applicants. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Murray, ordering the law school to admit him, as the Black law schools were not of the same academic caliber.
1938: Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada: The Supreme Court sided with Lloyd Gaines, a Black graduate student who was denied admission to the University of Missouri Law School. The Court stated that since a law school for Black students did not exist in Missouri, the state was required to provide legal education for Gaines within its boundaries.
1948: Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma: The Supreme Court ruled that states must provide equal educational opportunities for Black students.
1950: Sweatt v. Painter: Heman Sweatt, an African American man, applied to the law school at the University of Texas, which had a white student body. The University set up an underfunded law school for Black students. The Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Sweatt, citing the blatant inequalities between the University's law school (the school for white students) and the hastily erected school for Black students.
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1950: McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education: The University of Oklahoma admitted George McLaurin, an African American male, to its doctoral program. However, it required him to sit apart and eat apart from the rest of his class. McLaurin sued to end the practices, stating that they had an adverse impact on his academic pursuits. The Supreme Court stated that the University's actions concerning McLaurin were adversely affecting his ability to learn and ordered that the practices cease immediately.
1950: Bolling v. Sharpe: This case challenged segregation in the District of Columbia public schools and became one of the consolidated Brown cases.
Brown v. Board of Education: The Landmark Case
The Brown v. Board of Education case was the culmination of years of legal challenges to segregation in public schools. The case that came to be known as Brown v. Supreme Court concerning the separate but equal concept in public schools.
The Topeka Case: Oliver Brown's Story
The Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case originated in 1951 when the Topeka, Kansas public school system refused to allow Oliver Brown's daughter Linda attend the public school near her home because she was Black. The school close to the Brown's home was for White students only as permitted by the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson which allowed states to segregate public schools as long as they provided separate but equal facilities for Black students. Brown challenged the Topeka school board's decision because the school for Black pupils required his daughter to walk a distance before taking a long bus ride to a school 21 city blocks from her home. Brown and other Black families in Topeka, KS, filed a class-action lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education.
Consolidation of Cases
The Brown v. Board of Education case as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: the original Brown case (appealed from Kansas), 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.). All were NAACP-sponsored cases.
Briggs v. Elliott: In 1949, Thurgood Marshall and NAACP officials met with Black residents of Clarendon County, SC. They decided that the NAACP would launch a test case against segregation in public schools if at least 20 plaintiffs could be found. The case became one of the cases consolidated by the Supreme Court into Brown v.
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County: NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson filed Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., was another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v.
Gebhart v. Belton: A Delaware court ruled that the plaintiffs in Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al., Gebhart et al. v. Bulah et al., Belton et al. v. Gebhart et al., and Bulah et al. v. Gebhart et al. were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the 11 children involved be immediately admitted to Delaware’s White schools.
Arguments Before the Supreme Court
The cases were consolidated under the name Brown v. The Board of Education. Marshall argued the case before the Court. Constitution. He also presented the results of sociological tests, such as the one performed by social scientists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, arguing that segregated school systems had a tendency to make Black children feel inferior to white children.
The Unanimous Decision
On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9-0 decision in favor of the Brown family and the other plaintiffs. The decision consists of a single opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which all the justices joined. The Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, declaring that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." The Court ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, even if the segregated facilities are equal in quality.The attorneys for Oliver Brown and his daughter Linda-George E.C. Hayes (Bolling v. Sharpe), Thurgood Marshall, and James M.
Brown II: Implementing Desegregation
After the Brown opinion was announced, the Court heard additional arguments during the following term on the decree for implementing the ruling. In 1955, the Supreme Court issued Brown II, which addressed the implementation of desegregation. Brown II was intended to work out the mechanics of desegregation. The Court delegated the responsibility of overseeing desegregation to the lower federal courts and ordered that schools be integrated with "all deliberate speed." However, the vagueness of this term allowed many states to delay or resist desegregation efforts.
Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement
In the Southern United States, the reaction to Brown among most white people was "noisy and stubborn", especially in the Deep South where racial segregation was deeply entrenched in society. Many Southern governmental and political leaders embraced a plan known as "massive resistance", created by Senator Harry F. Byrd, in order to frustrate attempts to force them to de-segregate their school systems, most notably immortalized by the Little Rock crisis.
1957: Little Rock Crisis: Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the state's Army National Guard to block nine Black students ("The Little Rock Nine") from entering Little Rock Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce the Court's decision and protect the students.
Continued Resistance: Civil Rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered in June 1963 after he filed a lawsuit to force the desegregation of schools in Jackson, Mississippi. In Alabama, Governor George Wallace personally blocked two Black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama vowing to support "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"
The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education
In the 70 years since the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling, there has been significant progress made in transforming our nation and its schools, but much work still remains. The Brown v. Board of Education decision was a major victory for the NAACP and the Civil Rights Movement.
Ongoing Segregation: The Department of Justice noted in a 2023 blog post commemorating the 69th anniversary of the Brown v. Government Accountability Office reported that nearly 18.5 million students still attend a segregated school today.
Continued Advocacy: The students, parents, and community groups who continue to work to make our nation's schools free from discrimination and provide a safe and welcoming place for all students are visible legacies of the Brown v.
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