Racial segregation in public schools during the 1950's was the norm across United States. Most African-American students were far inferior to their white counterparts even though all the schools in a given district were supposed to be equal. Linda Brown, a black thrid grader in Tpeka, Kansas, had to walk one mile to get to her black elementary school even though there was a white elementary school only seven blcoks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school. but the principal of the school refused to admit a black student. Oliver Brown went to the head ofTopeka's branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help. The NAACP had long wanted to challenge segregation in public school so they eagerly assited the Brown family. Brown's case was heard from June 25-26 in 1951 by the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The NAACP argued that school which were segregated sent the message to African American children that they were inferior to whites; therfore, the schools were inherently unequal. Doctor Hugh W. Speer, an expert witnness, testified that: ". . . if the colored children are denied the experiencein school associating with white children, who represent 90 percent of our national society in which these colored children must live, then the children's curriculum is being greatly curtailed. The Topeka curriculum or any school cannot be equal under segregation." The defense of the Board of Education was that because segregation in Topeka and elsewhere pervaded many other aspect of life, segregated schools simply prepared black children for the segregation they would face during adulthood. They also argued that segregated schools were not necessarily harmful to black children; great African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and frederick Douglass had overcome more than just segregated schools to achieve what they had accomplished. The court was put in a difficult situation with the request for an injunction. The jury had agreed with the expert witness and wrote: Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children . . . A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn." However, there was the influential Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In this decision, made in 1896, the court found that the doctrine of "separate but equal" concerning segregation of public facilities was constitutional. The court felled compelled to rule in favor of the Board of Education because of the precedent. The NAACP and Brown appealed to the Supreme Court on October 1, 1951. Other cases that challenged segregated schools in Deleware, South Carolina, and Virginia were combined with with Brown's case. The Supreme Court failed to reach a decision when they first heard the case on December 9, 1952. In the reargument, heard from December 7 and 8, 1953, the court had to make its decision based not on whether or not the authors of the 14th Amendment had the desegregation of schools in mind when they wrote the amendment in 1868, but based on whether or not desegregated schools deprived African American children of equal protection of the law when the case was decided at 12:52 p.m. on May 17, 1954. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, striking down the "separate but equal" doctrine and required the desegregation of all public schools across America. The Supreme Court's decision did not abolish segregation in other public areas such as hotels, bathrooms, and restaraunts, nor did it require the desegregation of schools by a specific time. It did declare the permissive or mandatory segregation which existed in 21 states unconstitutional. Even though ten years after the case, only one percent of black students attended desegregated schools in the South, this court case was still a huge towards complete desegregation of public schools.

http://www.digisys.net/users/hootie/brown/brown.htm

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http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html