In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools.
Attorneys - Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service) Belton v. Gebhart (Bulah v. Gebhart) Thurgood Marshall led a life in the pursuit of equality, and was on a path destined to lead him to the U.S. Supreme Court. Read More...
Harold R. Fatzer. As Attorney General of Kansas, Harold Fatzer argued the case for the appellees (Kansas) in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Mr. Fatzer served as Kansas Supreme Court Justice from February, 1949, to March, 1956.
Robert L. Carter. Born in 1917, Robert Carter, who served as an attorney for the plaintiffs in Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al., was of particular significance to the Brown v. Board of Education case because of his role in the Briggs case.
In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka's all-white elementary schools.
The U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, was bundled with four related cases and a decision was rendered on May 17, 1954. Three lawyers, Thurgood Marshall (center), chief counsel for the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund and lead attorney on the Briggs case, with George E. C. Hayes (left) and James M.
They argued that such segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs were denied relief in the lower courts based on Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that racially segregated public facilities were legal so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.
Marshall won a series of court decisions that gradually struck down that doctrine, ultimately leading to Brown v. Board of Education, which he argued before the Supreme Court in 1952 and 1953, finally overturning “separate but equal” and acknowledging that segregation greatly diminished students' self-esteem.
In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl WarrenOn May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.
Thurgood MarshallCharles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, had worked to integrate schools through the courts since the 1930s. Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first black Supreme Court justice, argued the case on behalf of the NAACP and the plaintiffs.
In South Carolina, Judge J. Waties Waring issued a dissenting opinion in which he called segregation in education “an evil that must be eradicated.” In Delaware, the court found that the 11 Black children named in the case were entitled to attend the white school in their communities.
Their case eventually became one of five included in the landmark 1954 case, Brown v. Board of Education. Spottswood W. Robinson, III, who was born in 1916, taught law at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and eventually became dean of the school. He made his mark on the history of Brown v.
This grouping of cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Delaware was significant because it represented school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one. Each case was brought on the behalf of elementary school children, involving all-Black schools that were inferior to white schools.
Although Bolling is historically considered one of the Brown v. Board of Education bundle cases, it was a different case due to the legal arguments.
Ferguson ruling of the United States Supreme Court as precedent. The plaintiffs claimed that the "separate but equal" ruling violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v.
Ethel Louise Belton#N#Ethel Belton and six other adults filed suit on behalf of eight Black children against Francis B. Gebhart and 12 others (both individuals and state education agencies) in the case Belton v. Gebhart. The plaintiffs sued the state for denying to the children admission to certain public schools because of color or ancestry. The Belton case was joined with another very similar Delaware case, Bulah v. Gebhart, and both would ultimately join four other NAACP cases in the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. Belton was born in 1937 and died in 1981.
Fatzer served as Kansas Supreme Court Justice from February 1949 to March 1956. Jack Greenberg. Jack Greenberg, who was born in 1924, argued on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, and worked on the briefs in Belton v. Gebhart.
C. Melvin Sharpe , acting as President of the Board of Education of the District of Columbia from 1948 to 1957, was named as the lead defendant in the case Bolling v. Sharpe. Earl Warren. Chief Justice Earl Warren, who was born in 1891, secured a unanimous decision in Brown v.
In the case that would become most famous, a plaintiff named Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools.
Board of Education of Topeka . Thurgood Marshall, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs.
While Kansas and some other states acted in accordance with the verdict, many school and local officials in the South defied it. In one major example, Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called out the state National Guard to prevent Black students from attending high school in Little Rock in 1957.
The ruling constitutionally sanctioned laws barring African Americans from sharing the same buses, schools and other public facilities as whites —known as “Jim Crow” laws —and established the “separate but equal” doctrine that would stand for the next six decades.
When Brown’s case and four other cases related to school segregation first came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka .
Separate But Equal Doctrine. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities were legal, so long as the facilities for Black people and whites were equal.
But in September 1953, before Brown v. Board of Education was to be heard, Vinson died, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced him with Earl Warren, then governor of California.
So the court consolidated all five under the name of Brown v. Board of Education. Thus, Rev. Brown became the lead plaintiff and Linda the face of this landmark case.
Board of Education decision was credited with kickstarting the process, not only for schools but also for other public accommodations.
Linda Brown was only 9 years old when her dad, the Rev. Oliver Brown, walked with her to an all-white neighborhood school in Topeka, Kansas. Brown’s request to enroll Linda in this school was denied. It was 1950, and under the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine, black and white Americans were separated in many ways, including transportation, public accommodations, and schools. States sanctioned such segregation, so many Americans accepted it as part of life. Not Rev. Brown and little Linda.
Linda Brown, the trailblazer of school desegregation, passed away Sunday at the age of 76. Her life is a shining example of how one person with determination and tenacity can have an enormous effect on history. But the fight for education access continues.
Helen Raleigh, CFA, is an American entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. She's a senior contributor at The Federalist. Her writings appear in other national media, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Helen is the author of several books, including " Confucius Never Said " and “ Backlash: How Communist China's Aggression Has Backfired ." Follow her on Parler and Twitter: @HRaleighspeaks.
With the help of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and a very competent lawyer, Thurgood Marshall (who later became the first black justice serving on the U.S. Supreme Court), the Brown family filed a lawsuit against the school board. Their case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Such economic segregation tends to hurt minority students most. A report from the Government Accountability Office shows that from school year 2000-2001 to 2013-2014, the percentage of K-12 public schools that were high-poverty and comprised of mostly black or Hispanic students grew significantly, from 9 percent to 16 percent. Moreover, those 16 percent of schools comprised mainly of students of color represent 61 percent of all high-poverty schools. Most of these schools are also underperforming schools, which fail to provide minority children the quality education they deserve. This helps keep them in lifelong poverty.
Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, was bundled with four related cases and a decision was rendered on May 17, 1954. Three lawyers, Thurgood Marshall (center), chief counsel for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and lead attorney on the Briggs case, with George E. C. Hayes (left) and James M. Nabrit (right), attorneys for the Bolling case, are shown standing on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court congratulating each other after the Court’s decision declaring segregation unconstitutional.
Attorneys for Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954