The anniversary of Brown
versus the Board of Education is this weekend. It has been sixty-six years
since the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous decision in Brown vs.
Board of Education, declaring segregation in public educational facilities unconstitutional.
The decision ended decades of federal support of the “separate but equal” doctrine
which began in 1896 with Plessy
vs. Ferguson.
Oliver Brown had filed suit after the Topeka Board of
Education would not allow his daughter, Linda, to attend a white school that
was near their home. Brown was one of the families in the area working with the
NAACP to integrate schools. According to the Brown Foundation website, “each
plaintiff was to watch the paper for enrollment dates and take their child to
the school for white children that was nearest to their home. Once they
attempted enrollment and were denied, they were to report back to the NAACP.
This would provide the attorneys with the documentation needed to file a
lawsuit against the Topeka School Board. The African American schools appeared
equal in facilities and teacher salaries, but some programs were not offered,
and some textbooks were not available. In addition, there were only four
elementary schools for African American children as compared to eighteen for
white children.”
The history of the historic Brown decision is preserved by,
among others, the National Parks Service and the family. Cheryl Brown
Henderson, the daughter of Oliver Brown, founded the Brown
Foundation.
In 2014 when the decision turned 60, then-Attorney General Eric
Holder said, “My generation…my generation…was the first to grow up in a world
in which ‘separate but equal’ was no longer the law of the land. Even as a
child growing up in New York City, I understand as I learned about the decision
that its impact was truly groundbreaking.”
Thurgood Marshall, who became the first African American
Supreme Court Justice, led the NAACP Legal Defense team during the Brown vs.
Board of Education case. Chief Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren wrote the
1954 decision. One year later on May 31, 1955 during arguments to determine how
states would implement the ruling, Warren urged states to start desegregation
plans “with all deliberate speed.”
