brown vs the board of education essay

Brown Vs. the Board of Education

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The case of Brown versus the Board of Education was one of the biggest turning points in African American history, as it was the match that lit the fire under the Civil Rights Movement. The case was the start of a dramatic change, not only for African Americans, but for the rest of the world. This case had a large impact on many other similar cases as well. In the 1950’s public facilities, buildings, events, even water fountains, were segregated. There were “black” school were only colored kids went.

Then there were “white only” schools, often close to the neighborhoods and communities where children of color stayed. Many African American children had to walk far distances to get to school. It reached a point where their parents worried about their children’s safety getting to school. The parents had enough and finally decided to speak up. A man named Oliver Leon Brown brought the topic of segregated schools to court after his daughter, Linda Brown was denied entry into an all white school. After years the case closed finally, in the favor of Mr. Brown, his daughter Linda, and the other African American children. The supreme court made the decision that it’s not fair that the black and white children were segregated in different schools. This case still affects society and the education system today. Brown v. Board of Education was the reason that blacks and whites no longer have separate restrooms and water fountains, this was the case that truly destroyed the saying separate but equal, Brown vs. Board of education truly made everyone equal.

The case started in Topeka, Kansas. Oliver Brown’s daughter, a third-grader named Linda Brown was one of many children having to travel long distance to get to her segregated school. She had to walk over a mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her “blacks only” elementary school. There was a white elementary school only seven blocks away from their home, but when Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his daughter into the school, the principal denied his request, simply due to the fact that Linda was not white. Brown went to the head of Topeka’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and asked for help. The NAACP were eager to help the Browns. In fact they had been wanting to challenge segregation in public schools for a while, and this was their chance. The NAACP was excited to start on a case like this because they wanted to expose what had really been going on in a ‘separate but equal society’. When this case was taken to the state level, it was unfortunately lost. The final ruling stated that separation by color was not violating any law or amendment. In fact the state was not only allowing the separation, but also implying that segregation in schools was necessary because it would prepare young African Americans for what was to come in the real world. During this time all of society was segregated, due to Jim Crow laws, Jim Crow laws were a collection of laws in the US that varied from state to state.

These laws legalized racial segregation. For example, African Americans weren’t allowed to eat in the same restaurants, drink from the same water fountains, or even ride in the same car train as white people. After losing the state case, Brown and the NAACP decided to continue to pursue the case. Mr. Brown and the NAACP went to the United-States Supreme Court. In October, 1951, they appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court , first heard from the lawyers December 9, 1952. Both sides argued their points. Brown’s lawyers argued that there shouldn’t be a segregation in the education system unless there was proof that black children were different from anyone else. The Board Of Education’s lawyers argued that many people including some blacks scholars, did not see a problem in attending an all black school. The arguments went on for three days. The supreme court talked the case over for three months. A year after the first arguments were heard, the case was reexamined. Three years passed until the court made their final decision on the case. Finally on May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court ruled, “separate schools for blacks and whites were unconstitutional. The court ordered all schools desegregated with “all deliberate speed.”” The final ruling of this case was monumental for African American history and the beginning of desegregation in society.

After the final ruling of the case in the favor of Linda Brown a lot of changes were supposed to be made. However, the changes that the Supreme Court court had demanded were not happening overnight, “ For a decade or more, little progress was made.. The first generation of desegregation plans for the late 1950s and early 1960s typically moved just a handful of black students into the white schools or allowed for voluntary transfers to different schools, producing only small read ductions and segregation” Many counties and states refused to go along with it. During the following years after the results of the trial the black population had to fight harder for their civil rights. After this one victory came many more trials. A number of school districts in the Southern and border states desegregated peacefully. In other places their was intense amounts of white resistance to school desegregation which resulted in open defiance and violent confrontations. Requiring the use of federal troops for example, Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. Elizabeth Eckford was a part of the little rock nine. She was integrating into white Central High School while surrounding her was, “an angry mob.. scores of adults and young whites were cruising in taunting her.. at times the mob uncontrollably surged forward, threatening Elizabeth’s life”. Efforts to end segregation in schools were connected with the refusal of welcoming African Americans into previously all-white schools. However, after all the intense hardships, the changes were slowly made. Brown v. Board of Education changed the nation, it changed history. The case changed the nature of race relations in America. By 1964, the NAACP’s focused legal campaign had been transformed into a mass movement to eliminate all traces of segregation and racism from the American life. This goal was built by struggle and sacrifice, Overtimes it captured the help and sympathy of the nation. Brown v. Board had inspired the dream of a society based on justice and racial equality. It had debunked the idea of ‘separate but equal’.

Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court decision that declared it unconstitutional to have separate public schools for black and white students, paving the way for integration. But how relevant is the framing of Brown v. Board to the current social, cultural and educational challenges today? The rulings of this case are reflected in the education system today, “ children of all races are allowed to attend public school together.. Academic achievement of African American children has dramatically increased since the ruling took place.” Even though this was an obvious effect of the case ruling, it is huge. The idea that at one point in history students were forced to go to a certain school based on skin color is crazy. However, Brown vs. Board also affects us socially and culturally today, “by focusing the nation’s attention on subjugation of blacks, it helped fuel a wave of freedom rides, sit-ins, voter registration efforts, and other actions leading ultimately to civil rights legislation in the late 1950s and 1960s.” The Supreme Court decision led to desegregation in schools, leading to desegregation throughout society. This led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Without the Supreme Court Ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education, the lives of all Americans would be completely different.

The case of Brown versus the Board of Education is historically known as one of the biggest turning points for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. This Supreme Court ruling led to more than the desegregation of schools, it led to desegregation in society. Schools could not be segregated by color or race. This provided the people of color access to quality education that had not been available to them before. This allowed many people of color to move into careers never thought possible due to the education required. The contact between children of different races was a significant push in reducing racial discrimination. White children with colored friends, which would have never been thought of before. Without it, society would be completely different today.

Works Cited

• Clark, K. B., Chein, I., & Cook, S. W. (2004). The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation A (September 1952) Social Science Statement in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court Case. American Psychologist, 59(6), 495-501.
• Norton, W. (2019). Shibboleth Authentication Request. [online] Ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu. Available at: https://ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/docview/262861122?accountid=35840 [Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].
• Orley Ashenfelter, William J. Collins, Albert Yoon; Evaluating the Role of Brown v. Board of Education in School Equalization, Desegregation, and the Income of African Americans, American Law and Economics Review, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 July 2006, Pages 213–248, https://doi.org/10.1093/aler/ahl001
• Reber, Sarah J. “Court-Ordered Desegregation: Successes and Failures Integrating American Schools since Brown versus Board of Education.” The Journal of Human Resources 40, no. 3 (2005): 559-90. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.bellevuecollege.edu/stable/4129552.
• Anonymous. “Fifty Years Ago: The Little Rock Nine Integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 57 (October 1, 2007): 5. http://search.proquest.com/docview/195549439/.

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Brown v. Board of Education

By: History.com Editors

Updated: February 27, 2024 | Original: October 27, 2009

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.

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.

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.

But by the early 1950s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) was working hard to challenge segregation laws in public schools, and had filed lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs in states such as South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.

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.

In his lawsuit, Brown claimed that schools for Black children were not equal to the white schools, and that segregation violated the so-called “equal protection clause” of the 14th Amendment , which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The case went before the U.S. District Court in Kansas, which agreed that public school segregation had a “detrimental effect upon the colored children” and contributed to “a sense of inferiority,” but still upheld the “separate but equal” doctrine.

Brown v. Board of Education Verdict

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 . 

Thurgood Marshall , the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief attorney for the plaintiffs. (Thirteen years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson would appoint Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice.)

At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation, with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson holding the opinion that the Plessy verdict should stand. 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 .

Displaying considerable political skill and determination, the new chief justice succeeded in engineering a unanimous verdict against school segregation the following year.

In the decision, issued on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” as segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” As a result, the Court ruled that the plaintiffs were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”

Little Rock Nine

In its verdict, the Supreme Court did not specify how exactly schools should be integrated, but asked for further arguments about it.

In May 1955, the Court issued a second opinion in the case (known as Brown v. Board of Education II ), which remanded future desegregation cases to lower federal courts and directed district courts and school boards to proceed with desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”

Though well intentioned, the Court’s actions effectively opened the door to local judicial and political evasion of desegregation. 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. After a tense standoff, President Eisenhower deployed federal troops, and nine students—known as the “ Little Rock Nine ”— were able to enter Central High School under armed guard.

Impact of Brown v. Board of Education

Though the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board didn’t achieve school desegregation on its own, the ruling (and the steadfast resistance to it across the South) fueled the nascent  civil rights movement  in the United States.

In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and would lead to other boycotts, sit-ins and demonstrations (many of them led by Martin Luther King Jr .), in a movement that would eventually lead to the toppling of Jim Crow laws across the South.

Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , backed by enforcement by the Justice Department, began the process of desegregation in earnest. This landmark piece of civil rights legislation was followed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 .

Runyon v. McCrary Extends Policy to Private Schools

In 1976, the Supreme Court issued another landmark decision in Runyon v. McCrary , ruling that even private, nonsectarian schools that denied admission to students on the basis of race violated federal civil rights laws.

By overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine, the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education had set the legal precedent that would be used to overturn laws enforcing segregation in other public facilities. But despite its undoubted impact, the historic verdict fell short of achieving its primary mission of integrating the nation’s public schools.

Today, more than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education , the debate continues over how to combat racial inequalities in the nation’s school system, largely based on residential patterns and differences in resources between schools in wealthier and economically disadvantaged districts across the country.

HISTORY Vault: Black History

Watch acclaimed Black History documentaries on HISTORY Vault.

History – Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment, United States Courts . Brown v. Board of Education, The Civil Rights Movement: Volume I (Salem Press). Cass Sunstein, “Did Brown Matter?” The New Yorker , May 3, 2004. Brown v. Board of Education, PBS.org . Richard Rothstein, Brown v. Board at 60, Economic Policy Institute , April 17, 2014.

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Background and case

What is the significance of Brown v. Board of Education ?

What was the aftermath of brown v. board of education .

• When did the American civil rights movement start?

Brown v. Board of Education

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• Table Of Contents

What did the Supreme Court decide in Brown v. Board of Education ?

In Brown v. Board of Education , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The 1954 decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal.

Brown v. Board of Education is considered a milestone in American civil rights history and among the most important rulings in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, and the efforts to undermine the Court's decision, brought greater awareness to the racial inequalities that African Americans faced. The case also galvanized civil rights activists and increased efforts to end institutionalized racism throughout American society.

After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, there was wide opposition to desegregation, largely in the southern states. Violent protests erupted in some places, and others responded by implementing “school-choice” programs that subsidized white students’ attendance at private, segregated academies , which were not covered by the Brown ruling.

When was Brown v. Board of Education decided?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954. The case had been argued before the Court on December 9, 1952, and reargued on December 8, 1953.

Who was the attorney for the plaintiffs in Brown v. Board of Education ?

In Brown v. Board of Education , the attorney for the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall . He later became, in 1967, the first African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brown v. Board of Education , case in which, on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9–0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution , which prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions. The decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal. It thus rejected as inapplicable to public education the “ separate but equal ” doctrine, advanced by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), according to which laws mandating separate public facilities for whites and African Americans do not violate the equal protection clause if the facilities are approximately equal. Although the 1954 decision strictly applied only to public schools, it implied that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities. Considered one of the most important rulings in the Court’s history, Brown v. Board of Education helped inspire the American civil rights movement of the late 1950s and ’60s.

In the late 1940s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began a concentrated effort to challenge the segregated school systems in various states, including Kansas. There, in Topeka , the NAACP encouraged a number of African American parents to try to enroll their children in all-white schools. All of the parents’ requests were refused, including that of Oliver Brown. He was told that his daughter could not attend the nearby white school and instead would have to enroll in an African American school far from her home. The NAACP subsequently filed a class-action lawsuit. While it claimed that the education (including facilities, teachers, etc.) offered to African Americans was inferior to that offered to whites, the NAACP’s main argument was that segregation by its nature was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause. A U.S. district court heard Brown v. Board of Education in 1951, and it ruled against the plaintiffs. While sympathetic to some of the plaintiffs’ claims, it determined that the schools were similar, and it cited the precedent set by Plessy and Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), which upheld the segregation of Asian Americans in grade schools. The NAACP then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In October 1952 the Court consolidated Brown with three other class-action school-segregation lawsuits filed by the NAACP: Briggs v. Elliott (1951) in South Carolina , Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (1952) in Virginia , and Gebhart v. Belton (1952) in Delaware; there was also a fifth case that was filed independently in the District of Columbia , Bolling v. Sharpe (1951). As with Brown , U.S. district courts had decided against the plaintiffs in Briggs and Davis , ruling on the basis of Plessy that they had not been deprived of equal protection because the schools they attended were comparable to the all-white schools or would become so upon the completion of improvements ordered by the district court. In Gebhart , however, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the original plaintiffs’ right to equal protection had been violated because the African American schools were inferior to the white schools in almost all relevant respects. In Bolling v. Sharpe (1951), a U.S. district court held that school segregation did not violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment (the equal protection clause was not relevant since the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to states). The plaintiffs in Brown , Biggs , and Davis appealed directly to the Supreme Court, while those in Gebhart and Bolling were each granted certiorari (a writ for the reexamination of an action of a lower court).

Brown v. Board of Education was argued on December 9, 1952. The attorney for the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall , who later became the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court (1967–91). The case was reargued on December 8, 1953, to address the question of whether the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment would have understood it to be inconsistent with racial segregation in public education. The 1954 decision found that the historical evidence bearing on the issue was inconclusive.

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Brown v. Board at Fifty: “With an Even Hand” Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Three lawyers confer at the Supreme Court, 1953. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (98)

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and its legal offspring, the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, developed a systematic attack against the doctrine of “separate but equal.” The campaign started at the graduate and professional educational levels. The attack culminated in five separate cases gathered together under the name of one of them— Oliver Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Kenneth B. Clark's “Doll Test” Notebook

During the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth Bancroft Clark and his wife, Mamie Phipps Clark designed a test to study the psychological effects of segregation on black children. In 1950 Kenneth Clark wrote a paper for the White House Mid-Century Conference on Children and Youth summarizing this research and related work that attracted the attention of Robert Carter of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Carter believed that Clark's findings could be effectively used in court to show that segregation damaged the personality development of black children. On Carter's recommendation, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund engaged Clark to provide expert social science testimony in the Briggs , Davis , and Delaware cases. Clark also co-authored a summation of the social science testimony delivered during the trials that was endorsed by thirty-five leading social scientists. The Supreme Court specifically cited Clark's 1950 paper in the Brown decision.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Notebook recording data concerning the “Doll Test,” 1940–1941. Kenneth B. Clark Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (61)

Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-brown.html#objobj61

Dr. Kenneth Clark Conducting the “Doll Test”

In the “doll test,” psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark used four plastic, diaper-clad dolls, identical except for color. They showed the dolls to black children between the ages of three and seven and asked them questions to determine racial perception and preference. Almost all of the children readily identified the race of the dolls. However, when asked which they preferred, the majority selected the white doll and attributed positive characteristics to it. The Clarks also gave the children outline drawings of a boy and girl and asked them to color the figures the same color as themselves. Many of the children with dark complexions colored the figures with a white or yellow crayon. The Clarks concluded that “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” caused black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred. This photograph was taken by Gordon Parks for a 1947 issue of Ebony magazine.

Gordon Parks, photographer. Dr. Kenneth Clark conducting the “Doll Test” with a young male child , 1947. Gelatin silver print. Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (62)

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Reading Lesson in Washington, D.C.

As the nation's capital became more and more populated by blacks in the first half of the twentieth century, the schools in District of Columbia became more segregated. During World War II, there was no new construction of schools and the few that existed were extremely overcrowded. After the war, new construction started but did not meet the needs of the District's populace. Many black students were attending schools in shifts while many of the white schools sat nearly empty. This condition eventually led to the Bolling v. Sharpe case, one of the five included in the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Marjory Collins. Reading lesson in African American elementary school in Washington, D.C. , 1942. Gelatin silver print. FSA-OWI Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (57C)

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Kenneth B. Clark's “Doll Test” Data Sheet

The Clarks used printed data sheets to record the children's responses during the “doll test,” as well as general observations. This data sheet lists the nine questions that were routinely asked. The letters “B” and “W” denote “black” and “white.” The abbreviations “LB” and “DB” denote “light brown” and “dark brown” complexions. The data reveals that Mark A., a black boy age four with a dark brown complexion, prefers the white doll and selects the white doll as the one that looks like him.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Sample Doll Test data sheet, n.d. Kenneth B. Clark Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (64)

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Briggs v . Elliott (South Carolina)

In 1949, the state NAACP in South Carolina sought twenty local residents in Clarendon County to sign a petition for equal education. The petition turned into a lawsuit and first name on the list was Harry Briggs. In preparation for the Briggs case, attorney Robert Carter returned to Columbia University to confer with Psychologist Otto Klineberg, who was known for his research on black students' IQ scores. He sought Klineberg's advice on the use of social science testimony in the pending trial to show the psychological damage segregation caused in black children. Klineberg recommended Kenneth Clark. Clark became the Legal Defense Fund's principal expert witness. He also agreed to assist the Legal Defense Fund 's lawyers in the preparation of briefs and recruit other prominent social scientists to testify. This document records the depositions of two expert witnesses who participated in Briggs v . Elliott : David Krech, a social psychology professor at the University of California; and Helen Trager, a lecturer at Vassar College.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Testimony of Expert Witnesses at Trial of Clarendon County School Case Direct Examination by Robert L. Carter , May 29, 1951. Transcript. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (57)

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Bolling v. Sharpe, (Washington D.C.)

Spottswood Thomas Bolling v. C. Melvin Sharpe, was one of the five school desegregation cases that comprised Brown . Because the District of Columbia was not a state but federal territory, the Fourteenth Amendment arguments used in the other cases did not apply. Therefore, the lawyers argued for “Due Process Clause” of the Fifth Amendment, which guaranteed equal protection of the law. The Consolidated Parents Group initiated a boycott of the black High School in Washington. D.C., which was overcrowded and dilapidated. In 1948, Charles H. Houston was hired to represent them in a law suit to make black schools more equal to white schools when Houston's health began to fail. He recommended James Nabrit as his replacement. Nabrit was joined by fellow attorney, George E. C. Hayes in presenting arguments for the District of Columbia case.

U. S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1954 Term. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, Law Library , Library of Congress (57B)

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Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs in Brown

In June 1950, shortly after the Sweatt , McLaurin , and Henderson victories, Thurgood Marshall convened a conference of the NAACP's board of directors and affiliated attorneys to determine the next step in the legal campaign. After several days of debate, Marshall decided to shift the focus from the inequality of separate black schools to a full assault on segregation. The NAACP immediately instituted lawsuits concerning segregated public schools in Southern and border states. Brown v. Board of Education was filed in the U.S. District Court in Topeka, Kansas, in February 1951 and litigated concurrently with Briggs v. Elliot in South Carolina. Oliver Brown, one of thirteen plaintiffs, had agreed to participate on behalf of his seven-year-old daughter Linda, who had to walk six blocks to board a school bus that drove her to the all-black Monroe School a mile away.

Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs (Charles E. Bledsoe, Charles Scott, Robert L. Carter, Jack Greenberg, and Thurgood Marshall) in the case of Oliver Brown, . . .delivered in the United States Court for the District of Kansas , June 1951. Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs (Charles E. Bledsoe, Charles Scott, Robert L. Carter, Jack Greenberg, and Thurgood Marshall) in the case of Oliver Brown, . . .delivered in the United States Court for the District of Kansas, June 1951. Page 2. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (54) Courtesy of the NAACP //www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/images/br0054p2s.jpg

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Finding of Fact for the Case of Oliver Brown

On June 25, 1951, Robert Carter and Jack Greenberg argued the Brown case before a three judge panel in district court in Kansas. They were assisted by local NAACP attorneys Charles Bledsoe and brothers John and Charles Scott. As in Briggs , the testimony of social scientists was central to the case. The Court found “no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination” in Topeka's schools. However, presiding Judge Walter A. Huxman appended nine “Findings of Fact” to the opinion. Fact VIII endorsed the psychological premise that segregation had a detrimental effect on black children. This was the windfall the NAACP needed to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Briggs and Brown were the first cases to reach the Court; three others followed. The Court decided to bundle all five cases and scheduled a hearing for December 9, 1952.

Opinion and Finding of Fact for the case of Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas, et al. Delivered in the United States Court for the District of Kansas , 1951. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (55) Courtesy of the NAACP

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Gebhart v. Belton; Gebhart v. Bulah (Delaware)

In 1950 Louis Redding filed a lawsuit on behalf of Sarah Bulah to admit her daughter Shirley to a nearby white elementary school, after the Delaware Board of Education refused to allow her to board an all-white school bus that drove pass their home. In 1951, Redding filed a second suit on behalf of Ethel Belton and nine other plaintiffs, whose children were barred from attending the all-white high school in their community. That fall, Thurgood Marshall sent Jack Greenberg to Wilmington to work with Redding on the litigation. Greenberg drafted this meticulous trial memorandum the week before the hearing. In it he provides a schedule of witnesses, instructions on deposing the witnesses, and the questions to be posed. Among the witnesses listed are psychologists Kenneth Clark and Otto Klineberg.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Trial Memorandum from Jack Greenberg concerning the Wilmington school case, October 11, 1951. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (58)

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A Court Rules: Equalization, Not Integration

Spurred by a student strike, blacks in Prince Edward County, Virginia, called a lower federal court's attention to the demonstrably unequal facilities in the county's segregated high schools. As this “Final Decree” in Davis v. County School Board shows, they convinced the U.S. District Court that facilities for blacks were “not substantially equal” to those for whites. The Court ordered the two systems to be made equal. However, it did not abolish segregation. Therefore, the plaintiffs appealed, and the Supreme Court heard their case along with Brown v. Board .

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Final Decree, [1952]. Typed memorandum. Kenneth Clark Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (59)

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Brief for Appellants, Brown v. Board , 1953

The Supreme Court did not render a judgement after the initial oral arguments in Brown v. Board . Instead, the Court submitted a list of five questions for counsel to discuss at a rehearing that convened on December 7, 1953. The questions pertained to the history of the Fourteenth Amendment and the relation between the views of the Amendment framers' intent to “abolish segregation in public schools.” The questions also addressed what remedies to be used in the event the Court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional. After assessing the questions, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund assembled a team of experts, including John A. Davis, a professor of political science at Lincoln University, Mabel Smythe, an economist, and psychologist Kenneth Clark, and scholars John Hope Franklin, C. Vann Woodward, and Horace Mann Bond, to conduct research during the summer.

Brief for Appellants in the cases of Brown v. Board of Education: Oliver Brown, et al. v. Board of Education, Kansas et al.; . . . in the United States Supreme Court-October Term, 1953 . Washington: GPO, 1953. Pamphlet. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (73) Courtesy of the NAACP

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Eisenhower and Davis

As President (1953–1961), Dwight David Eisenhower took decisive action to enforce court rulings eliminating racial segregation. He would not, however, endorse the Brown decision or condemn segregation as morally wrong. John W. Davis, who had been the Democratic Party's unsuccessful candidate for president in 1924, was the lead counsel in the South's effort to uphold the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal” in arguments before the Supreme Court in 1953. The two men are shown meeting in New York in October 1952, shortly before Davis would endorse Eisenhower for president. Thurgood Marshall in later years would say of Davis, “He was a good man . . . who believed segregation was a good thing.”

Ike with John W. Davis at the Herald Trib Forum 10/21 , 1952. Photograph. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (73A)

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Waiting for Courtroom Seats

This photograph shows interested members of the public waiting in line outside the Supreme Court for a chance to obtain one of the 50 seats allotted to hear the second round of arguments in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. The case involved four states (Kansas, Virginia, Delaware and South Carolina) and the District of Columbia. Among an impressive array of legal representation for the plaintiffs was Thurgood Marshall serving as chief council for the NAACP. The opposing side was led by John W. Davis, one time Democratic presidential candidate and expert on constitutional law.

Waiting for courtroom seats , 1953. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (74) Digital ID# cph 3c13498

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Three Lawyers Confer at the Supreme Court

In preparation for the Brown court case the three lead lawyers gathered to discuss their final strategy. Pictured ( left to right )are Harold P. Boulware, ( Briggs case), Thurgood Marshall, ( Briggs case), and Spottswood W. Robinson III ( Davis case). The lawyers said that the Brown case hoped to end the “separate but equal” doctrine of the earlier Plessy decision and make it illegal to continue segregation in public schools.

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The Warren Court

Pictured in this photograph are nine members of the Supreme Court that decided Brown v. Board of Education . Seated in the front row ( from left ) Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, Earl Warren, Stanley Reed, and William O. Douglas. In the back row are Tom Clark, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Burton, Sherman Minton. The photograph was taken late in 1953, after President Dwight D. Eisenhower had nominated Warren to the Court, but before the U.S. Senate had confirmed him as Chief Justice.

U. S. Supreme Court Justices , 1953. Photograph. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (102)

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Brown Attorneys After the Decision

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 Bolling case, standing on the steps of the Supreme Court congratulating each other after the court ruling that segregation was unconstitutional.

George E. C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit congratulating each other , 1954. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (99) [Dig ID # cph 3c11236]

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“Segregation in Schools is Outlawed”

The case that gave the Brown v. Board of Education decision its name originated in a Federal District Court in Topeka, Kansas. The Russell Daily News , serving the city and county of Russell, Kansas, announced the decision with a banner headline and two front page stories. On the day of the decision, this evening newspaper carried United Press reports from Washington, D.C., and from Topeka, along with the ruling and the Kansas Attorney General's statement of intention to comply.

The Russell Daily News (Russell, Kansas), Monday, May 17, 1954. Historic Events Newspaper Collection, Serial and Government Publications Division , Library of Congress (84)

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Humiliation and Inferiority

William T. Coleman assisted Thurgood Marshall with the planning and execution of the Brown litigation. Member of the NAACP Legal Committee, Coleman's stellar academic record at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School paved his way to the Supreme Court, where he became the first African American clerk in 1948. Coleman wrote this memorandum for Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1949. Agreeing with Coleman's contention that segregation was unconstitutional because it was an humiliating sign of inferiority, Frankfurter commented: “That it is such has been candidly acknowledged by numerous accounts & adjudications in those States where segregation is enforced. Only self conscious superiority or inability to slip into the other fellow's skin can fail to appreciate that.”

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Warren Works For Unanimity

Realizing that overturning school segregation in the South might entail a degree of social upheaval, Chief Justice Warren carefully engineered a unanimous vote, one without dissents or separate concurring opinions. Assigning the two opinions—one for state schools, one for federal—to himself, he circulated two draft memoranda with opinions to his colleagues. He proposed to put off the tricky question of implementation until later. He also set forth his idea that “opinions should be short, readable by the lay public, non-rhetorical, unemotional and, above all, non-accusatory.”

Earl Warren to members of the Court, May 7, 1954. Typed memorandum. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (80)

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“A Beautiful Job”

Early in May 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren circulated draft opinions for the school desegregation cases to his colleagues on the Court. Associate Justice William O. Douglas responded enthusiastically in this handwritten note: “I do not think I would change a single word in the memoranda you gave me this morning. The two draft opinions meet my idea exactly. You have done a beautiful job.”

William Douglas to Earl Warren, May 11, 1954. Holograph letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (81A)

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“A Great Day for America”

Associate Justice Harold H. Burton sent this note to Chief Justice Earl Warren on the day that the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board was announced. He said, “Today I believe has been a great day for America and the Court. . . . I cherish the privilege of sharing in this.” In a tribute to Warren's judicial statesmanship, Burton added, “To you goes the credit for the character of the opinions which produced the all important unanimity. Congratulations.”

Harold H. Burton to Earl Warren, May 17, 1954. Holograph letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (82)

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Frankfurter's Congratulations to Warren

Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, who had worked to achieve a definitive repudiation of segregation by the Supreme Court, sent this note to Chief Justice Warren on the day that the decision in Brown v. Board was publicly announced—a day that Frankfurter said would “live in glory.” Frankfurter added that the Court's role was also distinguished by “the course of deliberation which brought about the result.”

Felix Frankfurter to Earl Warren, May 17, 1954. Holograph letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (82B)

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Warren's Reading Copy of the Brown Opinion, 1954

Chief Justice Earl Warren's reading copy of Brown is annotated in his hand. Warren announced the opinion in the names of each justice, an unprecedented occurrence. The drama was heightened by the widespread prediction that the Court would be divided on the issue. Warren reminded himself to emphasize the decision's unanimity with a marginal notation, “unanimously,” which departed from the printed reading copy to declare, “Therefore, we unanimously hold. . . .” In his memoirs, Warren recalled the moment with genuine warmth. “When the word 'unanimously' was spoken, a wave of emotion swept the room; no words or intentional movement, yet a distinct emotional manifestation that defies description.” “Unanimously” was not incorporated into the published version of the opinion, and thus exists only in this manuscript.

Earl Warren's reading copy of Brown opinion, May 17, 1954. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (83)

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Celebration of the Supreme Court's Decision

The Supreme Court's decision on the Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 marked a culmination in a plan the NAACP had put into action more than forty years earlier—the end to racial inequality. African American parents throughout the country like Mrs. Hunt, shown here, explained to their children why this was an important moment in history.

Mrs. Nettie Hunt and daughter Nikie on the steps of the Supreme Court, 1954 . Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (97) Digital ID # cph 3c27042

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Segregation Ruling Explained to the Press

Chief counsel for the NAACP Thurgood Marshall spoke to the press in New York City on May 31 after the Supreme Court decreed an end to public school segregation as soon as feasible. At the news conference in New York City, Marshall told reporters “. . .the law had been made crystal clear” and added, “Southerners are just as law abiding as anyone else, once the law is made clear.” He was speaking after Brown II , the court's second opinion in the Brown case, which ordered the implementation of the original ruling in a “prompt and reasonable” start towards desegregation.

Thurgood Marshall explains segregation ruling to the press , 1955. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (104)

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Congratulatory Telegram on Brown Decision

The NAACP's affiliation with the philanthropic Stokes family began with J. G. Phelps Stokes, one of the organization's founders. At the time of the Brown decision, Anson Phelps Stokes was president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a charitable trust that sponsored black schools and educational projects. Stokes became familiar with the racial politics of the South through his work with the Tuskegee Institute. This telegram celebrates the consensus of the Southern justices and urges the NAACP to “heartily support the court decision postponing implementing orders so that these wonderful new[s] gains may be safe guarded with minimum disturbances in a difficult situation. . . .”

Anson Phelps Stokes to Channing Tobias, Chairman of the NAACP, offering congratulations on the NAACP's victory in Brown v. Board of Education . Telegram. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (96) Courtesy of the NAACP

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Congratulatory Letter on the Brown Decision

William Patterson was an attorney and former Executive Secretary of the International Labor Defense (ILD), an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of racial minorities, political radicals, and the working class. In 1931, the ILD competed with the NAACP for the right to represent the “Scottsboro Boys,” nine black men convicted of raping two white women. The NAACP lost the bid because it lacked a full-time legal staff spurring Walter White, then head of the NAACP, to hire Charles H. Houston and set up a legal department. In this letter Patterson, head of the Civil Rights Congress, a leftist organization, attributes opposition to the Brown decision to “the demoralizing effect of segregated schools on white youth. It has made bigots out of millions who have not learned in their separate schools that there are no superior people.”

William L. Patterson, Executive Secretary of the Civil Rights Congress, to Walter White congratulating White on the NAACP's victory in Brown v. Board of Education , May 17, 1954. Typed letter. NAACP Records, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (95) Courtesy of the NAACP

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An African American Response

The multi-faceted African American response to the decision was articulated throughout the black press and in editorials published in official publications of national black organizations. Founded in 1910, The Crisis magazine, shown here, is the official organ of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In response to the decision, a special issue of The Crisis was printed to include the complete text of the Supreme Court decision, a history of the five school cases, excerpts from the nation's press on segregation ruling, and the text of the “Atlanta Declaration,” the official NAACP response and program of action for implementing the decision.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. The Crisis magazine: A Record of the Darker Races. Volume 61, no. 6 (June–July, 1954). General Collections , Library of Congress (92)

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Conferring at the Supreme Court

In 1929 Louis L. Redding, a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, became the first African American attorney in Delaware—the only one for more than twenty years. He devoted his practice to civil rights law and served as the counsel for the NAACP Delaware branch. In 1949 Redding won the landmark Parker case, which resulted in the desegregation of the University of Delaware. In1951, Redding and Greenberg tried two cases in Delaware's Chancery Court: Bulah v. Gebhart and Belton v. Gebhart, which respectively concerned elementary school and high school. On April 1, 1952, Judge Collins Seitz ordered the immediate admission of black students to Delaware's white public schools, but the local state-run-school board appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Frankfurter's Draft Decree in Brown II , 1955

After the Brown opinion was announced, the Court heard additional arguments during the following term on the decree for implementing the ruling. In a draft, prepared by Felix Frankfurter, which Warren subsequently adopted, Frankfurter inserted “with all deliberate speed” in place of “forthwith,” which Thurgood Marshall had suggested to achieve an accelerated desegregation timetable. Frankfurter wanted to anchor the decree in an established doctrine, and his endorsement of it sought to advance a consensus held by the entire court. The justices thought that the decree should provide for flexible enforcement, appeal to established principles, and suggest some basic ground rules for judges of the lower courts. When it became clear that opponents of desegregation were using the doctrine to delay and avoid compliance with Brown , the Court began to express reservations about the phrase.

Felix Frankfurter's draft decree in Brown II, April 8, 1955. //www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/images/br0107p2s.jpg

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Topeka School Map

In response to requests from two Justices during the oral arguments of the implementation phase of Brown v. Board , Kansas Attorney General Harold Fatzer provided the Court with this map of the Topeka public school districts along with 1956 enrollment estimates by race. Although almost all of the schools shown were either overwhelmingly white or completely black, Fatzer argued that Topeka had not deliberately gerrymandered the districts so as to concentrate black pupils into a few districts. Also shown is a key to the map, representing the placement of students in the districts.

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Raymond F. Tilzey. The Elementary School District Boundaries for the City of Topeka 1955–1956 . Printed Map. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (109)

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Southern White Liberal Reaction

Many white Southern liberals welcomed the moderate and incremental approach of the Brown implementation decree. Ralph McGill, the influential editor of the Atlanta Constitution , wrote in praise of the Court's decision to have local school boards, in conjunction with Southern court judges, formulate and execute desegregation orders. Certain that “the problem of desegregation had to be solved at the local level,” he told Chief Justice Warren that the Court's ruling was “one of the great statesman-like decisions of all time,” exceeding all previous decisions “in wisdom and clarity.”

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Ralph McGill to Earl Warren, June 1, 1955. Typed letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (113A)

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Adverse Reactions to Brown

Challenges to legal and social institutions implicit in the Brown decision led to adverse reactions in both Northern and Southern states. U.S. Solicitor General Simon Sobeloff forwarded to Chief Justice Warren this letter from an official of the New York chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. The official attributed the impetus behind the Court's action to “the worldwide Communist conspiracy” and claimed that the NAACP had been financed by “a Communist front.”

The Library of Congress does not have permission to show this image online. Lee Hagood to Simon Sobeloff, September 29, 1955. Typed letter. Earl Warren Papers, Manuscript Division , Library of Congress (116A)

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Thurgood Marshall

After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on May 17, 1954, and May 31, 1955, desegregating schools, Thurgood Marshall (1908–1994), was featured on the cover of Time magazine, on September 19, 1955. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Marshall graduated with honors from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. His exclusion from the University of Maryland's Law School due to racial discrimination, marked a turning point in his life. As a result, he attended the Howard University Law School, and graduated first in his class in 1933. Early in his career he traveled throughout the South and argued thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court, winning twenty-nine. Charles H. Houston persuaded him to leave private law practice and join the NAACP legal staff in New York, where he remained from 1936 until 1961. In 1939, Marshall became the first director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Marshall as Solicitor General in 1965 and nominated him to a seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1967 from which he retired in 1991.

Time magazine, September 19, 1955. Cover. General Collections , Library of Congress (115) Courtesy of Time-Life Pictures, Getty Images

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Barnard Elementary, Washington, D. C.

This image of an integrated classroom in the previously all white Barnard Elementary School in Washington, D.C., shows how the District's Board of Education attempted to act quickly to carry out the Supreme Court decision to integrate schools in the area. However, it did take longer for the junior and senior high schools to integrate.

Thomas J. O'Halloran. School integration, Barnard School, Washington, D.C. , 1955. Gelatin silver print. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Collection, Prints and Photographs Division , Library of Congress (202)

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Brown v. Board: An American Legacy

We ain't asking for anything that belongs to those white folks. I just mean to get for that little black boy of mine everything that any other South Carolina boy gets. I don't care if he's as white as the drippings of snow. The Rev. J.W. Seals, Summerton, SC, 1953

It is, on its face, a story of separateness.

It is the story of two little girls walking through a railroad switchyard in 1950s Topeka, Kansas, lunch bags in hand, unable to attend a nearby white school, making their way to the black bus stop beyond the tracks.

And it is the larger story of countless other African-American children walking great distances, against great odds, to reach their own segregated schools as buses filled with white children passed them by.

But it is, at its heart, a story of togetherness, of courageously good-hearted and open-minded black and white people—and others—working together toward a constitutional ideal.

"When you look at Brown you are looking at a moment so powerful it is the equivalent of the Big Bang in our solar system," says historian and commentator Juan Williams. "It led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It led to sit-ins and bus rides and freedom marches. And even today, as we argue about affirmative action in colleges and graduate schools, the power of Brown continues to stir the nation."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the separate but equal doctrine in American public schools.

The 11-page decision—much shorter than other major decisions of the era, and written by Chief Justice Earl Warren in purposefully unemotional language—was firm and clear: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

The decision was unanimous. Reaction was not. Newspaper editorials variously praised and condemned the decision. White Southerners vowed opposition. Predictions of ugly resistance came true.

Color lines, certainly, had already been crossed by 1954. Jackie Robinson, for example, had made history on the baseball field the previous decade.

But for those who resisted integration, watching a sport was very different from sending a child to school. Because opposition was fierce, those who fought for integration faced tremendous hardships. Often they lost jobs, were denied credit and were ostracized in white—and sometimes even black—society.

The half-century since Brown has been a series of gains and losses, from segregation to integration and on to a new kind of segregation. Other movements—feminism, the fights for other minority rights, LGBT rights, the rights of people with disabilities—were aided, bolstered and fueled by Brown . And while Brown focused on schools, it also helped in the fight for desegregation of everything from public golf courses to public buses.

On one hand, Brown remains the hallmark of the promise of equality for this nation. On the other, Brown's promise remains, if not broken, certainly unfulfilled.

The road to Brown

It's fitting that Linda Carol Brown and younger sister Terry Lynn had to walk along railroad tracks for their daily journey to school, fitting that so many other children determined to have an education journeyed such long paths to school. The route to Brown was similarly long and arduous, court cases linked together, steaming forward to a destination countless miles away.

The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund pulled the train. In the mid-20th century United States, the NAACP was the most powerful civil rights organization, with membership growing tenfold in the 1940s, to nearly half a million.

And Thurgood Marshall served as conductor, the lead NAACP attorney for Brown and the mastermind behind much of its strategy. Marshall would later become the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Brown itself was made up of five separate but similar court cases in four states and the District of Columbia, representing tens of families:

• Briggs v. Elliott in South Carolina;
• Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County in Virginia;
• Gebhart v. Belton (a collection of cases itself, sometimes cited as Belton v. Gebhart or Bulah v. Gebhart ) in Delaware;
• Bolling v. Sharpe in the District of Columbia (which ended up with a separate court decision); and
• The actual Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in Kansas.

These cases had been working their way through state and federal courts for several years. Details varied and strategies differed, but each case attacked the forced segregation of black students.

Other cases— Cumming v. Richmond (Ga.) Board of Education, Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, Sweatt v. Painter, and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education —were precursors to Brown , earlier attempts at integration and equal rights. (See timeline.)

And two 19th-century Supreme Court cases had created the laws that Brown sought to overturn:

• 1896's Plessy v. Ferguson, which opened the door to state-sanctioned racial discrimination across the South.
• And 1857's Dred Scott v. Sanford, which ruled that black people, enslaved or free, were "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Reacting to Brown : Hope and hatred

When the Brown decision was announced, the Chicago Defender, a long-standing African-American newspaper, printed this: "Neither the atom bomb nor the hydrogen bomb will ever be as meaningful to our democracy as the unanimous declaration of the Supreme Court that racial segregation violates the spirit and the letter of our Constitution."

While fear of reprisal kept many black people from celebrating publicly, the decision still inspired tremendous emotion. James T. Patterson's book, Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and its Troubled Legacy, describes one reaction:

Sara Lightfoot, a 10-year-old black girl, vividly recalled the moment that news of Brown reached her house. "Jubilation, optimism and hope filled my home," she wrote later. "Through a child's eye, I could see the veil of oppression lift from my parents' shoulders. It seemed they were standing taller. And for the first time in my life I saw tears in my father's eyes."

But not all African Americans celebrated. Some worried that desegregation would further alienate black people in white society; that it would lead to the elimination of jobs for black school teachers; that it would do little to eliminate the racism in people's hearts and minds.

Zora Neale Hurston, a noted African-American author, put it this way: "How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near them?"

Among white people, many in the North and West, unaffected by the ruling, still saw it as positive. Conversely, white southern leaders and southern newspapers loudly and angrily denounced the decision. 

Consider the May 18, 1954, editorial in the Jackson, Miss., Daily News :

Human blood may stain Southern soil in many places because of this decision, but the dark red stains of that blood will be on the marble steps of the United States Supreme Court building. White and Negro children in the same schools will lead to miscegenation. Miscegenation leads to mixed marriages and mixed marriages lead to the mongrelization of the human race.

Georgia Gov. Marvin Griffin said, "No matter how much the Supreme Court seeks to sugarcoat its bitter pill of tyranny, the people of Georgia and the South will not swallow it."

Such harsh words foreshadowed the difficulty of implementing Brown .

"With all deliberate speed"

Brown was actually decided in phases. After striking down Plessy and declaring segregation unconstitutional, the Warren Court handled the issue of implementation separately. Brown II , as it has come to be known, was handed down more than a year later, on May 31, 1955.

In that decision, the Supreme Court sent all cases back to lower courts, asking states to desegregate their schools "with all deliberate speed."

An earlier draft of the ruling had used the words "at the earliest practicable date," but that language was struck down, in part as an appeasement to the anticipated resistance of the South. Using the more open-ended "deliberate speed" wording, Brown set no deadlines and left much of the decision-making in the hands of local school officials.

From 1955 to 1960, federal judges would hear more than 200 school desegregation cases. Border states reached 70 percent integration within about two years. Southern states, from grade to graduate school, were hardly changed:

• In 1956, Autherine Lucy, a black woman seeking admission to the University of Alabama, was called vile names and pelted with rotten eggs by angry white people. Officials excluded her from campus, then expelled her. The university remained all white until the early 1960s.  
• In 1957, bloody riots erupted as nine black students attempted to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. President Eisenhower, a reluctant player in the extended battle, eventually surrounded the school with 1,100 soldiers from the U.S. Army and the Arkansas National Guard. Troops stayed all year.  
• In 1960 in New Orleans, armed marshals shielded 6-year-old Ruby Bridges as she passed an angry crowd of 150 white people who threw tomatoes and eggs.  
• And by 1964 in Prince Edward County, Virginia—a full decade after Brown —not a single black child had been admitted to a white school. In fact, the county defiantly closed its public schools for five years rather than integrate them.

"Sleepwalking back to Plessy "

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally gave some teeth to Brown . That act, supported by the executive branch, empowered the federal government to cut funding to schools that continued to segregate their students and gave the U.S. Department of Justice authority to file lawsuits seeking desegregation of schools.

As Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote at the time, "There has been entirely too much deliberation and not enough speed in enforcing the constitutional rights which we held in Brown. "

But even then, integration was fought in a variety of ways. Using the fact that, legally speaking, Mexican Americans were considered "white," schools in Texas and other states created "integrated" schools of Mexican Americans and African Americans, leaving all-white schools unchanged.

It wasn't until 1971 that widespread integration began. That's when a North Carolina case— Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education —allowed school systems to bus students as a way of integrating schools in segregated neighborhoods. Busing remains a volatile issue, but this decision is the one that prompted the highest levels of integration.

The number of black students attending majority-white schools in the South rose from 2 percent in the mid-1960s to nearly 45 percent in the late 1980s, the peak of school integration.

But success brought other changes. The mid-1980s also saw the first lifting of federal court sanctions, allowing schools to return to racial segregation. By 1991, integration levels had returned to pre-1971 levels.

Gary Orfield of Harvard University's Civil Rights Project put it this way: "We are, in essence, sleepwalking back to Plessy. "

The 1970s through the 1990s also spotlighted new forms of segregation, fueled by a history of so-called "white flight" from cities to suburbs, particularly in the North and Midwest. By the opening of the 21st century, the nation's most segregated public schools were found not in the South but in Illinois, New York and New Jersey.

There, and in other areas across the country, black and Latino students live in segregated, urban neighborhoods and attend overcrowded, under-funded, low-achieving schools, while most of their white counterparts attend affluent, nearly all-white schools in suburban America.

Separate and unequal continues: More than 80 percent of black and Latino segregated schools are in high-poverty areas, compared with 5 percent of segregated white schools.

Today, the arguments are about affirmative action and the disparities created by the use of property taxes to fund schools. Just last year, the Supreme Court offered a split decision on affirmative action admissions to college, upholding race-based admissions at the University of Michigan's Law School but striking down a similar process used for Michigan's undergraduates.

The issues have changed, but the fundamental question remains: How equal are American educational opportunities?

So many things

In the end, Brown is as simple as equality and as complex as justice.

Brown is the courage of Barbara Johns, a 16-year-old girl in Farmville, Virginia, who in 1951 led a black student walkout of 450 young people, shaming adults into taking up the cause of integration. As one of the Brown lawyers explained at the time, "We didn't have the nerve to break their hearts."

It is the activism of Esther Brown, a white Jewish woman who, along with the NAACP, fought school segregation in several Kansas cities, becoming herself a target of white hatred.

It is the persistence of McKinley Burnett, the Topeka NAACP president who, well before the Brown case, tried to persuade the Topeka Board of Education to integrate its schools.

It is the hindsight of Kenneth Clark, a psychologist who testified in Brown about the harm done to black children by segregation. Forty years after Brown , Clark wrote that the United States "likely ... will never rid itself of racism and reach true integration. While I very much hope for the emergence of a revived civil rights movement with innovative programs and dedicated leaders, I am forced to recognize that my life has, in fact, been a series of glorious defeats."

It is all those children of color, in so many states, moving with determination and hope toward the promise of equal education.

And it is those two little girls in Topeka, walking on the packed earth of a railroad switchyard, reminding us all that education in this free land is less free for some children than it is for others, the journey longer, more fraught with pitfalls, then and now.

Photograph by Carl Iwasaki/Time-Life Pictures

Beyond Black and White

All five of Brown v. Board of Education's cases involved African-American plaintiffs. But the historical legacy and aftermath of Brown drew from a richer cultural and political spectrum.

There was 1927's Gong Lum v. Rice in Mississippi, in which a Chinese-American girl fought for the right to attend the white school rather than the black school. The Lum family made the case that the girl wasn't black. The court ruled she wasn't white, allowing school officials to categorize children as they saw fit.

In the 1940s—but still predating Brown —there was Mendez v. Westminster School District , when a Mexican-American family fought for and won the right to attend integrated schools in California.

The NAACP closely watched the California case, since its concerns mirrored those of the cases that would become Brown. Earl Warren, the man who would later write the Brown decision, was governor of California at the time.

The California case illustrated the layers of segregation and oppression present in the mid-20th century United States. The Mendez family had moved into the district in which their children faced discrimination because they were called on to oversee the farm of a Japanese-American family who had been interned during World War II.

Similar stories are found at the time of the Brown decision. In one school district in rural Texas in the mid-1950s, Mexican-American students were held in Spanish-language classrooms—even if they were able to speak English—in first and second grades before being integrated with white students.

Most Mexican-American students were kept in first grade for four years, followed by several years in second grade. Most students reached third grade at precisely the age they dropped out to go to work with their families in the fields.

In 1957, a court ruled the practice was "purposeful, intentional and unreasonably discriminatory" and ordered a new system for assigning students.

Brown , too, would be used to wage battles for inclusiveness on behalf of children with disabilities. At the time of Brown , nearly every state prohibited children with epilepsy from attending public school, even though medications were available to control seizures.

In praising Brown , Lillian Smith of Clayton, Georgia, wrote this in a 1954 letter to the New York Times : "All these children, some with real disabilities, others with the artificial disability of color, are affected by this great decision."

This article is a concise examination of school segregation, the Brown case and its relevance in the ongoing struggle for school equity. Build on this history using one or more of the following activities.

1. The Supreme Court concluded in its Brown decision that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Using the web or school library, research how the resources of segregated schools differed. Construct 3-D models of a white school and a school for children of color in the pre- Brown era.

2. Create songs, raps, poems or spoken word pieces about the legacy of Brown. Host a school assembly to showcase students' work.

3. Pretend it's May 17, 1954. Write the front-page headline and lead story for your local newspaper. Use poster board or multimedia to display students' stories—contrasted against the front page that actually ran in your community newspaper.

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Milestone Documents

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka , Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives.

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In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896  Plessy v. Ferguson  case.

On 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. This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier in Plessy v. Ferguson and served as a catalyst for the expanding civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s.

Arguments were to be heard during the next term to determine just how the ruling would be imposed. Just over one year later, on May 31, 1955, Warren read the Court's unanimous decision, now referred to as Brown II , instructing the states to begin desegregation plans "with all deliberate speed."

Despite two unanimous decisions and careful, if vague, wording, there was considerable resistance to the Supreme Court's ruling in  Brown v. Board of Education . In addition to the obvious disapproving segregationists were some constitutional scholars who felt that the decision went against legal tradition by relying heavily on data supplied by social scientists rather than precedent or established law. Supporters of judicial restraint believed the Court had overstepped its constitutional powers by essentially writing new law.

However, minority groups and members of the civil rights movement were buoyed by the  Brown  decision even without specific directions for implementation. Proponents of judicial activism believed the Supreme Court had appropriately used its position to adapt the basis of the Constitution to address new problems in new times. The Warren Court stayed this course for the next 15 years, deciding cases that significantly affected not only race relations, but also the administration of criminal justice, the operation of the political process, and the separation of church and state.

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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) (USSC+)

Argued December 9, 1952

Reargued December 8, 1953

Decided May 17, 1954

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS*

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal.

(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education.

(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation.

(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal.

(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson , 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education.

(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases come to us from the States of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. They are premised on different facts and different local conditions, but a common legal question justifies their consideration together in this consolidated opinion.

In each of the cases, minors of the Negro race, through their legal representatives, seek the aid of the courts in obtaining admission to the public schools of their community on a nonsegregated basis. In each instance, they had been denied admission to schools attended by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race. This segregation was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment. In each of the cases other than the Delaware case, a three-judge federal district court denied relief to the plaintiffs on the so-called "separate but equal" doctrine announced by this Court in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537. Under that doctrine, equality of treatment is accorded when the races are provided substantially equal facilities, even though these facilities be separate. In the Delaware case, the Supreme Court of Delaware adhered to that doctrine, but ordered that the plaintiffs be admitted to the white schools because of their superiority to the Negro schools.

The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal," and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws. Because of the obvious importance of the question presented, the Court took jurisdiction. Argument was heard in the 1952 Term, and reargument was heard this Term on certain questions propounded by the Court.

Reargument was largely devoted to the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. It covered exhaustively consideration of the Amendment in Congress, ratification by the states, then-existing practices in racial segregation, and the views of proponents and opponents of the Amendment. This discussion and our own investigation convince us that, although these sources cast some light, it is not enough to resolve the problem with which we are faced. At best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among "all persons born or naturalized in the United States." Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect. What others in Congress and the state legislatures had in mind cannot be determined with any degree of certainty.

An additional reason for the inconclusive nature of the Amendment's history with respect to segregated schools is the status of public education at that time. In the South, the movement toward free common schools, supported by general taxation, had not yet taken hold. Education of white children was largely in the hands of private groups. Education of Negroes was almost nonexistent, and practically all of the race were illiterate. In fact, any education of Negroes was forbidden by law in some states. Today, in contrast, many Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world. It is true that public school education at the time of the Amendment had advanced further in the North, but the effect of the Amendment on Northern States was generally ignored in the congressional debates. Even in the North, the conditions of public education did not approximate those existing today. The curriculum was usually rudimentary; ungraded schools were common in rural areas; the school term was but three months a year in many states, and compulsory school attendance was virtually unknown. As a consequence, it is not surprising that there should be so little in the history of the Fourteenth Amendment relating to its intended effect on public education.

In the first cases in this Court construing the Fourteenth Amendment, decided shortly after its adoption, the Court interpreted it as proscribing all state-imposed discriminations against the Negro race. The doctrine of "separate but equal" did not make its appearance in this Court until 1896 in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson , supra, involving not education but transportation. American courts have since labored with the doctrine for over half a century. In this Court, there have been six cases involving the "separate but equal" doctrine in the field of public education. In Cumming v. County Board of Education , 175 U.S. 528, and Gong Lum v. Rice , 275 U.S. 78, the validity of the doctrine itself was not challenged. In more recent cases, all on the graduate school level, inequality was found in that specific benefits enjoyed by white students were denied to Negro students of the same educational qualifications. Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada , 305 U.S. 337; Sipuel v. Oklahoma , 332 U.S. 631; Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629; McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , 339 U.S. 637. In none of these cases was it necessary to reexamine the doctrine to grant relief to the Negro plaintiff. And in Sweatt v. Painter , supra, the Court expressly reserved decision on the question whether Plessy v. Ferguson should be held inapplicable to public education.

In the instant cases, that question is directly presented. Here, unlike Sweatt v. Painter , there are findings below that the Negro and white schools involved have been equalized, or are being equalized, with respect to buildings, curricula, qualifications and salaries of teachers, and other "tangible" factors. Our decision, therefore, cannot turn on merely a comparison of these tangible factors in the Negro and white schools involved in each of the cases. We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.

In approaching this problem, we cannot turn the clock back to 1868, when the Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896, when Plessy v. Ferguson was written. We must consider public education in the light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be determined if segregation in public schools deprives these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.

Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.

We come then to the question presented: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.

In Sweatt v. Painter , supra, in finding that a segregated law school for Negroes could not provide them equal educational opportunities, this Court relied in large part on "those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school." In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents , supra, the Court, in requiring that a Negro admitted to a white graduate school be treated like all other students, again resorted to intangible considerations: ". . . his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession." Such considerations apply with added force to children in grade and high schools. To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. The effect of this separation on their educational opportunities was well stated by a finding in the Kansas case by a court which nevertheless felt compelled to rule against the Negro plaintiffs:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.

Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson , this finding is amply supported by modern authority. Any language in Plessy v. Ferguson contrary to this finding is rejected.

We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This disposition makes unnecessary any discussion whether such segregation also violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Because these are class actions, because of the wide applicability of this decision, and because of the great variety of local conditions, the formulation of decrees in these cases presents problems of considerable complexity. On reargument, the consideration of appropriate relief was necessarily subordinated to the primary question -- the constitutionality of segregation in public education. We have now announced that such segregation is a denial of the equal protection of the laws. In order that we may have the full assistance of the parties in formulating decrees, the cases will be restored to the docket, and the parties are requested to present further argument on Questions 4 and 5 previously propounded by the Court for the reargument this Term The Attorney General of the United States is again invited to participate. The Attorneys General of the states requiring or permitting segregation in public education will also be permitted to appear as amici curiae upon request to do so by September 15, 1954, and submission of briefs by October 1, 1954.

It is so ordered.

* Together with No. 2, Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, argued December 9-10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953; No. 4, Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al. , on appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, argued December 10, 1952, reargued December 7-8, 1953, and No. 10, Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al. , on certiorari to the Supreme Court of Delaware, argued December 11, 1952, reargued December 9, 1953.

The annotated bibliography includes information about related Web resources and teacher materials, as well as fiction and non-fiction books for children, young adults, and adults.

The timeline provides an overview of events related to Brown v. Board of Education, from 1849-2003.

Project Essay (.pdf) This essay by project co-curator Alonzo Smith develops some of the major themes presented in the Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education exhibition and Web site.

Teacher’s Guide The teacher’s guide complements the curriculum from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to today. Each unit begins with background information for the teacher based on the museum’s Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education exhibition. Following the narrative are suggested lesson plans. All of the lessons address the historical thinking standards of chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation, and historical issues and decision-making. Along with the guide you will find images, teacher briefing sheets, ands student handouts that accompany each unit.

Electronic Field Trips

Two 50 minute broadcasts, one for middle school students and one for high school students were broadcast on the Internet on May 19, 2004. The archived field trips include a special tour of the Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education exhibition by curators Alonzo Smith and Harry Rubenstein, film footage from the exhibition, and a Q&A session between curators, and school children from around the country.

For Visiting School Groups

The Museum invites students to connect with people, ideas, and events of the past through an exciting array of standards-based programs.

From the Archive

Brown v. Board of Education at Fifty: A Personal Perspective

The College Board Review marked the anniversary of the seminal school desegregation Supreme Court ruling in its Fall 2003 issue with an essay from Oliver Brown’s daughter

Elective Staff

• February 23, 2021

If there were a Mt. Rushmore of Supreme Court decisions, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka would surely be on it. ( Marbury v. Madison , New York Times Company v. Sullivan , and Roe v. Wade would be up there, too.) The landmark unanimous decision, delivered in 1954 by Chief Justice Earl Warren, desegregated America’s public schools by finding the principle of “separate but equal,” outlined in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, unconstitutional. Brown v. Board was a major victory for civil rights and equality in education, and it’s the rare Supreme Court case so consequential that it has entered the firmament of everyday American conversation.

In the Fall 2003 issue of The College Board Review , which was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board , Cheryl Brown Henderson contributed an essay that added a personal dimension to the decision. Her father, Oliver, is the case’s namesake (an accident of history, and possibly misogyny, she writes), and at the time her piece was published she was executive director of the Brown Foundation in Topeka, Kansas. She comes at the case, and its impact, from a unique perspective: She was in the room when her mother heard the news of the Court’s decision; she grew up in its immediate aftermath and witnessed in real-time its impacts (and failures); and she has dedicated her life to helping the nation grapple with and interpret its legacy.

“Although the legal battle was won many years ago, the goal of equal educational opportunity for our children remains elusive,” she writes. “A system of de facto segregation still exists in many cities and towns across the country, and great inequities still exist in the financing of our schools and in the availability of qualified teachers to teach in those schools.” That was a hard, but real, truth in 2003, and in the years since it has become an even more urgent cause of concern. “Separate but equal” may no longer rule the land, but uneven distribution of public school funding, resources, and opportunities have helped hasten the resegregation of too many districts . (The second episode of the New York Times ’ excellent Nice White Parents podcast takes a long look at the long tradition of school segregation in New York City.)

The challenge of ensuring all children have equal access to quality access is large. But it has always been. And in Brown Henderson’s essay is a call to action—one that America should take up as we approach the 75th anniversary of Brown v. Board : “as those who went before us, when we hear history's call, we too will have the courage to stand up and answer.”

The Kansas Collection, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas

Rev. Oliver Brown, whose became the namesake—quite by accident—of the Brown v. Board of Education case.

On May 17, 1954, around midday, my mother was listening to the radio while she did the ironing at our home in Topeka, Kansas. As she worked, she heard the news report come on the air: the U.S. Supreme Court had rendered a unanimous decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, effectively outlawing racial segregation in public schools across the nation.

The words of Chief Justice Earl Warren, words that reverberate to this day, were read aloud for the first time: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

It was one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century, one that would change the course of American history. The case bore my father's name, and one day it would have a profound effect on me, my family, and the entire country. But on that day in Topeka, strange as it may seem, it was not big news. My mother simply returned to her ironing. And my father, Oliver Brown, the lead plaintiff in the case and a welder for the Santa Fe Railroad and pastor of St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church, didn't even hear the news until my mother told him when he returned home from work that evening. How could it be that such a momentous decision was not greeted with raucous celebration?

The answer lies in the difficult and complicated history that led up to the court case and some of the myths that have emerged since the court's decision. As head of a foundation whose mission is to educate the public about the significance of the Brown decision, inevitably this has meant addressing some of these myths. As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown decision, it therefore is fitting that I take stock of this history and offer a few thoughts about the decision's importance for our times. These observations are from someone who carries with her not only the name of this famous decision but part of its personal legacy, too.

Thomas J. O'Halloran/U.S. News & World Report Magazine/Library of Congress

Photograph of lawyer Thurgood Marshall, published by U.S. News & World Report Magazine on September 17, 1957.

A Crucial Turning Point

The truth is that it took years before the full effect of the Brown decision was felt by the nation—and my family. From the perspective of 2003, it is astonishing to see how far­reaching it really was. First, as hard as it is to imagine today, there was a time in this country—and in my lifetime—when racial segregation was sanctioned by law. The Brown decision was the beginning of the end of that shameful period. In addition to overturning laws that allowed segregated schools in Kansas and 20 other states, it also struck down the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, which had given us the infamous doctrine of "separate but equal." But perhaps most important of all, it reaffirmed that all of the citizens of this country were entitled to the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Scholars and historians also mark the case as a crucial turning point in our country, opening up a period of social conscience, equity, and justice that had not been seen since the political underpinnings of the Civil War. Brown served as a catalyst for the civil rights movement and set the precedent for landmark legislation of that era and beyond, extraordinary legislative milestones such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1972 Education Amendments Act giving us Title IX, among others. Ultimately, the decision paved the way to equal rights for Americans of every color, for women, for the disabled, and for older Americans.

Sadly, my father died in 1961 and he never lived to see any of this. Had he lived, I am sure he would have been amazed to see what the case ultimately accomplished and how history had made him an icon, albeit an accidental one. For contrary to some of the myths surrounding the decision, my father was not the promulgator of the Brown v. Board case. He and parents from 12 other families had been recruited by the local chapter of the NAACP to challenge the law that upheld segregation in the Topeka Elementary schools. In all probability, his name came first on the list of plaintiffs—and therefore secured for him a lasting place in history—because he was the only man among the plaintiffs, perhaps a reflection of the gender politics of the day.

What all 13 plaintiffs shared, however, was a basic fact of life. Although they lived four or five blocks away from the nearest public elementary school, the school was for White children only. Therefore, some children had to be bused 30 or 40 blocks to a segregated Black school. Although Kansas had a relatively progressive history in terms of race relations, the state was dragging its feet in integrating the elementary schools (all other schools were integrated at that time). To these 13 parents it made not only "civil rights sense" but common sense to end the practice.

A Story of Personal Sacrifice

Of course the case ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but what many people don't know is that it was combined with four other school segregation cases from Delaware, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Virginia. It is also important to remember that although the participants in Kansas generally did not suffer dire consequences as a result of their school enrollment attempts, the same could not be said about the plaintiffs in the other cases. For many of them, their willingness to take a stand cost them dearly.

For example, Reverend J. A. DeLaine, who organized Briggs v. Elliott , the South Carolina case, had to flee his house in the middle of the night in fear for his life. His home was later burned to the ground. Annie Gibson, who was a plaintiff in Briggs , lost her job as a maid in a motel and her husband was forced off the land he had farmed for over 50 years. In an interview for an oral history project conducted for the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, she said that if the Black schools had desks, she never would have signed the petition that demanded better educational facilities.1 These ordinary people made extraordinary sacrifices and were the true foot soldiers in the revolution.   There are many other people who should be recognized for their valiant efforts in the cause of school desegregation and the Brown v. Board story in particular, although I don't have the space to do them justice here. Thurgood Marshall, the lead attorney for the NAACP in Brown v. Board , who would one day distinguish himself as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, is perhaps the most famous name associated with the case. It is also worth remembering another man, Charles Hamilton Houston, whose role in the fight for school desegregation is less well known but in many ways is just as important.

Houston was a man of remarkable conviction and accomplishment, including becoming the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review . He served as dean of Howard University Law School, making it a training ground for generations of African American civil rights lawyers. As the special counsel to the NAACP from the 1930s through 1950, Houston was instrumental in crafting the legal strategy that targeted inequality in education, a strategy that resulted in several successful legal precedents that eventually led to the Brown decision. Although he had to step down from his position for health reasons, Houston remained an important adviser to his successor, Thurgood Marshall.

Vieilles Annonces/Flickr

The May 21, 1964, cover of Jet Magazine featuring students involved in the Brown v. Board of Education case. The story inside the magazine was published with the headline "5 Pioneers Find Neither Fame Nor Fortune After Case."

Learning the Lessons of History

Observing the Brown Foundation's activities over the years—whether it was the lawyers handling the cases, community activists organizing petitions, or the many families who participated as plaintiffs—I have learned that what we do to remember and recognize the many actors in the school desegregation drama is an important part of the effort to recover the true history and meaning of the events leading up to the Brown decision. Uncovering the truth of the past is also to discover its genuine lessons. But what are those lessons for our times?

I am a teacher by training; I believe deeply in the value of education and providing all of our children with a high-quality education. I believe that making good schools available to all our children is essential to create an educated citizenry, and an educated citizenry is a prerequisite for a healthy democracy. At the very least, this is what the school desegregation fight was all about. The parents and children who participated in these cases believed just as deeply in the value of education and the justice of their cause. They had the courage of their convictions and were willing to stand up for their rights and the rights of future generations.

Unfortunately, although the legal battle was won many years ago, the goal of equal educational opportunity for our children remains elusive. A system of de facto segregation still exists in many cities and towns across the country, and great inequities still exist in the financing of our schools and in the availability of qualified teachers to teach in those schools. So the educational agenda of the civil rights movement remains unfinished. Changing this will require nothing short of a sustained national commitment and the hard work of many people who are willing to stand up and make their voices heard.

Despite what some people may think, our system of government works exactly the way it was explained to us in civics class so many years ago: The structure is there, but as citizens, we have to make it work. That is one of the other important lessons I learned from researching the history of the Brown decision and from our foundation's work with the U.S. Congress and the National Parks Service to create a national historic site in Topeka to commemorate the decision.

Over the years, the story of Brown v. Board of Education is for my family and me where the personal intersects with the public in strange and complicated ways. Because the case was named for my father, our family was often the first stop for people searching for information and answers about the Brown decision. Eventually this prompted my mother and sisters and me to become students of the decision and spurred us to help maintain its legacy. In the end, I discovered how fitting it was that my father became the accidental icon of the school desegregation story. For me, he came to represent the quiet action of hundreds of ordinary people who heard and answered the call of history.

So as I think about the fiftieth anniversary of Brown , this is what I would wish for all of us: that as those who went before us, when we hear history's call, we too will have the courage to stand up and answer.

Endnote: 1. Jean Van Defender, "Capturing Forgotten Moments in Civil Rights History," The Brown Quarterly , Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1999)

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Brown v. Board of Education: A Resource Guide

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Selected historical events that had an impact on the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education are highlighted on this page and presented in chronological order. Use the tabs below to read about each historical event in history.

Dred Scott, Plaintiff in error, v. John F. A. Sanford (1856)

The Supreme Court denied citizenship to African American people, setting the stage for their treatment as second class citizens.

• The Case: Dred Scott, Plaintiff in error, v. John F. A. Sandford External Supreme Court of the United States / 60 U.S. 393; 15 L. Ed. 691 / December, 1856 Term
• Slaves and the Courts, 1740 to 1860 Collection This collection consists of 105 library books and manuscripts, totalling approximately 8,700 pages drawn principally from the Law Library and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, with a few from the General Collections. The selection was guided in large part by the entries in Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases by Paul Finkelman (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1985), which was based on research in the Library collections.
• Collections items related to the case of Dred Scott This link searches the collection for all items related to the Dred Scott case.

Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (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. Ferguson , including Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.

• Education of the Negroes since 1860, by J.L.M. Curry.
• Laws in Relation to Freedmen, U.S. Sen. 39th Congress, 2nd Sess. Senate Executive Doc. No. 6.
• An Act to Incorporate Howard University in the District of Columbia [March 2, 1867] Scroll to middle of page to see this Act [PDF]
• Howard University (Today in History Essay)

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. They were also forbidden from carrying weapons in public places and working in certain occupations.

Significance : Segregation Begins - Public schools were segregated, and African Americans were barred from serving on juries, and testifying against Whites.

• Kind and Scope of Education Needed for the Colored Race
• Education of colored children
• Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution: Civil Rights Act of 1866

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Formally abolishing slavery in the United States, the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the states on December 6, 1865

• 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History (A Research Guide)

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1868)

The 14th Amendment overruled Dred Scott v. Sanford . It guaranteed that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside, and that no state shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens, deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person the equal protection of the law.

• 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History (A Research Guide)
• The Fourteenth Amendment (Today in History essay)

United States Civil Rights Cases (1883)

The Court declared that the Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit discrimination by private individuals or businesses, paving the way for segregation in public education.

• Civil Rights Resource Guide

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Homer adolph plessy, plaintiff in error, v. j.h. ferguson, judge of section "a" criminal district court for the parish of orleans.

Homer A. Plessy challenged an 1890 Louisiana law that required separate train cars for African Americans and White Americans. The Supreme Court held that separate but equal facilities for White and African American railroad passengers did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Significance : Plessy v. Ferguson established the “separate but equal” doctrine that would become the constitutional basis for segregation. Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter in Plessy, argued that forced segregation of the races stamped African Americans with a badge of inferiority. That same line of argument would become a decisive factor in the Brown v. Board decision.

• Plessy v. Ferguson (Today in History essay) On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads. For some fifty years, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision upheld the principle of racial segregation. Across the country, laws mandated separate accommodations on buses and trains, and in hotels, theaters, and schools.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People founded (1909)

W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) . Their mission was to eliminate lynching, and to fight racial and social injustice, primarily through legal action.

Significance : The NAACP became the primary tool for the legal attack on segregation, eventually trying the Brown v. Board of Education case.

• NAACP: A Century in the Fight for Freedom (online exhibition) In response to the Springfield riot, a group of black and white activists, Jews and gentiles, met in New York City to address the deteriorating status of African Americans. Among them were veterans of the Niagara Movement (a civil rights group), suffragists, social workers, labor reformers, philanthropists, socialists, anti-imperialists, educators, clergymen, and journalists—some with roots in abolitionism. In the abolitionist tradition, they proposed to fight the new color-caste system with a “new abolition movement”—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Thurgood Marshall named special counsel of the NAACP (1939)

Marshall succeeded his mentor, Charles Hamilton Houston.

Significance : Thurgood Marshall would eventually lead counsel in the Brown v. Board of Education case.

• Thurgood Marshall (Today in History essay) On October 2, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as a United States Supreme Court justice. Long before President Lyndon Johnson appointed him the first African American Supreme Court justice, Marshall had established himself as the nation’s leading legal civil rights advocate.
• Thurgood Marshall Papers, 1949-1991 (A Finding Guide) Chiefly correspondence, case files, dockets, and other papers from Marshall's tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court (1967-1991); correspondence, administrative files, and other papers from his service (1961-1965) as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit); and correspondence and legal papers relating to his years as U.S. solicitor general (1965-1967). The papers reflect Marshall's advocacy for the civil rights of minority and impoverished individuals and of criminal defendants and his opposition to capital punishment. Correspondents include Benjamin O. Davis, John Doar, John Hope Franklin, Arthur J. Goldberg, Lyndon B. Johnson, J. Edward Lumbard, Adam Clayton Powell, Carl Thomas Rowan, and Roy Wilkins.

Brown v. Board of Education filed (1951)

Brown v. Board of Education was filed in the U.S. District Court in Topeka, Kansas, in February 1951.The case was litigated concurrently with Briggs v. Elliot in South Carolina.

Significance : The NAACP defense team attacked the "equal" standard so that the "separate" standard would, in turn, become vulnerable.

• Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs in Brown (online exhibition) Brief of the Attorneys for the Plaintiffs (Charles E. Bledsoe, Charles Scott, Robert L. Carter, Jack Greenberg, and Thurgood Marshall) in the case of Oliver Brown, . . .delivered in the United States Court for the District of Kansas, June 1951.

Brown v. Board of Education decision (1954)

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued a decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

Significance : The Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson , and declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

• "A Century of Racial Segregation" This section "A Century of Racial Segregation" with the online exhibit "With an Even Hand" Brown v. Board at Fifty" contains multiple references to Plessy v. Ferguson.

Brown II (1955)

May 31: Brown II —with all deliberate speed On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court handed down Brown II , ordering that desegregation occur with "all deliberate speed."

Significance: Brown II was intended to work out the mechanics of desegregation. Due to the vagueness of the term "all deliberate speed," many states were able to stall the Court’s order to desegregate their schools. The legal and social obstacles that southern states put in place and encouraged, in their effort to thwart integration, served as a catalyst for the student protests that launched the civil rights movement.

• Frankfurter's Draft Decree in Brown II, 1955 After the Brown opinion was announced, the Court heard additional arguments during the following term on the decree for implementing the ruling. In a draft, prepared by Felix Frankfurter, which Warren subsequently adopted, Frankfurter inserted “with all deliberate speed” in place of “forthwith,” which Thurgood Marshall had suggested to achieve an accelerated desegregation timetable.
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Brown vs. Board of Education Research Paper

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Introduction

Analysis and discussion, reference list.

The 20 th century saw the American education system faced with the issue of segregation, resulting in many students being denied the chance to attend schools of their choice on the basis of their race. During this time, schools adopted structured curricula that were not student-centered.

With time, however, the American education system underwent a major transformation process. Today, the American educational curricula are not only student-centered, but also inclusive. In addition, different policies have also been passed in support of an inclusive education system. The passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) 2001 is also part of the educational reforms that were envisaged in the American education system. The policy was part of educational initiatives aimed at promoting education in the United States.

The campaign has given all students equal educational opportunities regardless of their socio-cultural, economic, or racial backgrounds. However, high cost of education and income discrepancies among the Americans of diverse socio-economic backgrounds have been the major setbacks in ensuring that education for all is realized. The current research paper examines the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case as a major turning point for the education system in the U.S.

The objective of the research paper is to develop a vision of education for the future based on past educational theories, trends and practices. The premise of the study is that school and educational systems have been undergoing progressive transformation.

The decision made by the Supreme Court as regard the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case is of importance to the American educational system. In addition, it also challenged the Plessy v. Ferguson , bringing to end segregation in the school system (Miller, 2004).

Previously, separate schools were set for Whites and Blacks (Cozzens, 1998). To encourage equality in school facilities (libraries and offices) and equal pay, civil rights activists and other human rights groups in America fought endlessly for change. In other words, the struggle for education for all started a long time ago and was part of civil rights movement in the U.S.

In the case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas , the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools posed a detrimental effect on colored students (Miller, 2004). In addition, Black students were denied an equal chance to benefit from the same educational system as their White counterparts. Consequently, Black students developed an inferiority complex, thereby affecting their learning capabilities (Cozzen, 1998).

The ruling further stated that segregation in schools had the capacity to retard the mental and educational development of Black students (Miller, 2004). This is because it was thought to deprive the students some of major benefits enjoyed in racially integrated schools. As such, there was need to implement an integrated school system. Following this ruling, students from minority races could now be admitted to public schools hitherto regarded as a preserve for the Whites.

Many people credited and applauded the ruling of the Supreme Court on the Brown case for the change it brought to the education system. Others saw the decision as a turning point for the schools admission system (Miller, 2004). For instance, minority students who had been denied places on White public schools could easily get admitted.

In addition, the Supreme Court ruling made the Plessy v. Ferguson interpretation and ruling invalid. The case allowed for the protection of Minorities as required in the Fourteenth Amendment on Equal Protection Clause. This meant that Black students could be admitted in schools which were previously the preserve of White students.

The ruling by the Supreme Court on this case was a major milestone in the U.S. education systems as schools became disintegrated allowing students of mixed races to attend same learning institutions. However, despite the recommendation to integrate minority students with white students, there still lacked a framework which specified an implementation plan for the proposed changes (Cozzens, 1998). However, this was a historical step towards full disintegration of public schools (Cozzens, 1998).

Drawing from the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case, it is important to note that full disintegration of public schools was a progressive act in the education system. According to Kremer (2005), progressive education was initiated in the 20 th century as part of educational reforms in public schools.

Furthermore, it was a philosophy that focused on how students should be taught in schools. It was “a response to the traditional way of teaching kids, which was very structured, dry, and authoritarian” (Kremer, 2004, p.32-33). As a result, progressive education focused on the adoption of humanistic values and democratic behaviors, as opposed to the traditional authoritative strategy.

Progressivism as an educational theory is based on the premise that schools should be child centered. The progressive model of education has been described as “new education” which advocates for the combination of education and actual experience (Kumar, 2004). The underlying philosophy in progressive model of education has been to change how schools teach students.

The education system has undergone tremendous transformation through the adoption of the progressivism philosophy as progressive educators have helped students reach conscientization. According to Kumar (2004), conscientization involves the breaking of prevailing mythologies in education to create new degrees of awareness, especially awareness of oppression. In other words, the progressive model focuses on continuity in the education system.

Just like in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case ruling, progressivism called for constant change in school system rather than being static. Currently, the education system has adopted the K-12 education system in public schools which encourages compulsory education for all. Moreover, there is an emerging trend in the schools system in regard to how students learn and how schools teach (Wilen-Daugenti & McKee, 2008).

For example, compared to the 20 th century, the current education process has now evolved into collaborative learning. Different stakeholders have come on board to transform the education system through research and students placements. The emerging trends are a sign that segregation in school system has continued to decline even as the number of minorities continues to increase (Stevenson, 2010).

The U.S education system requires visionary leaders who can implement policies which allow for continuity in the system. My vision of the purpose and structure of schools in the future entails embracing a progressive model which is student-centered. In other words, schools should adopt a curriculum which embraces both education and actual experience.

Although the current K-12 education system faces some challenges, the incorporation of NCLB has led to improvement in the education system. Nonetheless, a visionary curriculum which embraces the global changes to make our students excel academically, gain the necessary skills and knowledge which would make them competitive at international markets is necessary.

The future structure of schools has to adopt curricula and policies that allow for change, fosters the need for collaboration in different sectors, and integrates different learning styles and approaches.

As advocated for by the progressive model of education, the structure should be accommodating to all students, including those who are physically challenged. In other words, education systems have to be more accommodative and progressive in order to give room for new changes and ideas. They should not rely on structured and authoritarian curriculum.

The education and schools systems continue to undergo transformation. The decision of the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case was a major turning point in the schools systems as it encouraged disintegration of public schools. In addition, a progressive model of education has played a major role in schools and education system as it allows child centered form of education. As part of transformation in education, progressivism philosophy focuses on education and experience.

The model tries to do away with traditional ways of teaching and instead adopt new trend in the education system. Such new trends in the education system have shown progressivism philosophy and what the plaintiffs fought for in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas case.

School systems have changed and minority students are no longer denied the chance to join public schools. My vision of the education purpose and structure of schools in the future should be based on the progressive model and education offered should be continuous and not static.

Cozzens, L. (1998). Brown v. Board of Education . Web.

Kremer, R. (2005). Progressive education: One parents journey. Education/Ideology , 6(1), 32-42.

Kumar, A. (2004). Philosophical trends, theories of educational intervention and adult learning . Web.

Miller, J. (2004). Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka: Challenging school segregation in the Supreme Court . New York, NY: PowerKids Press.

Stevenson, K. R. (2010). Educational trends shaping school planning, design, construction, funding and operations . Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Building Sciences.

Wilen-Daugenti, T., & McKee, A. G. R. (2008). 21st century trends for higher education: Top trends, 2008–2009. California: Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group.

• Educational Management in Early Childhood Education
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IvyPanda. (2018, November 6). Brown vs. Board of Education. https://ivypanda.com/essays/brown-vs-board-of-education/

"Brown vs. Board of Education." IvyPanda , 6 Nov. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/brown-vs-board-of-education/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Brown vs. Board of Education'. 6 November.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Brown vs. Board of Education." November 6, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/brown-vs-board-of-education/.

1. IvyPanda . "Brown vs. Board of Education." November 6, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/brown-vs-board-of-education/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Brown vs. Board of Education." November 6, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/brown-vs-board-of-education/.

Amdt14.S1.8.2.2 Aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Following its decisions in Brown I and II , the Supreme Court addressed numerous states’ and localities’ refusals to comply with its mandates. Four years after Brown I , for example, the Court in Cooper v. Aaron described various actions taken by Arkansas state authorities, including amending the state constitution to direct the Arkansas state legislature to oppose the Supreme Court’s Brown decisions. 1 Footnote Cooper v. Aaron , 358 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1958) . See also id. at 4 ( As this case reaches us it raises questions of the highest importance to the maintenance of our federal system of government. . . . Specifically it involves actions by the Governor and Legislature of Arkansas upon the premise that they are not bound by our holding in Brown v. Bd. of Educ. ). The issue before the Court in Cooper concerned the first stage of an Arkansas local school board’s desegregation plan—admitting nine Black students to a high school of over 2,000 students in Little Rock, Arkansas. 2 Footnote Id. at 9 . See also id. at 8 ( While the School Board was thus going forward with its preparation for desegregating the Little Rock school system, other state authorities, in contrast, were actively pursuing a program designed to perpetuate in Arkansas the system of racial segregation which this Court had held violated the Fourteenth Amendment. ). The Governor had ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block their attendance, 3 Footnote Id. at 9–11 . and after the Guard withdrew under court order, the President of the United States sent federal troops to facilitate the admission of the nine students in late September of 1957. 4 Footnote Id. at 12 . Following these actions, the local school board petitioned to postpone all further steps to desegregate and withdraw the Black students already admitted to the high school, 5 Footnote Id. at 12–13 . pointing to the continued public hostility which the school board alleged had been provoked by other state authorities. 6 Footnote Id. at 12 ( Their position in essence was that because of extreme public hostility, which they stated had been engendered largely by the official attitudes and actions of the Governor and the Legislature, the maintenance of a sound educational program at Central High School, with the Negro students in attendance, would be impossible. ). A unanimous Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s denial of that petition, 7 Footnote Id. at 14 . stating: The constitutional rights of respondents are not to be sacrificed or yielded to the violence and disorder which have followed upon the actions of the Governor and Legislature. 8 Footnote Id. at 16 .

While racial segregation in public education is commonly associated with K-12 schools, numerous public institutions of higher education—such as public colleges, law schools, and doctoral programs—had White-only admissions policies that barred Black students from matriculating solely because of their race. 9 Footnote See generally , e.g. , United States v. Fordice , 505 U.S. 717, 721 (1992) (discussing the historical background of Mississippi’s public higher education system; stating that Mississippi launched its public university system in 1848 by establishing . . . an institution dedicated to the higher education exclusively of white persons ); Sipuel v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Okla. , 332 U.S. 631, 632 (1948) (analyzing an equal protection claim concerning a Black student who was concededly qualified for admission to Oklahoma’s only public law school, but had been denied admission solely because of her color ); Knight v. Alabama , 14 F.3d 1534, 1538 (11th Cir. 1994) ( In very broad terms, for more than a century following its admission to the Union in 1819, Alabama denied blacks all access to college-level public higher education and did so for the purpose of maintaining the social, economic, and political subordination of black people in the state. . . . Following Reconstruction, blacks were excluded from the universities attended by whites, relegated instead only to vastly inferior institutions that did not even begin to offer college-level courses until required to do so by a 1938 Supreme Court decision. ). For more information, see Christine J. Back & JD S. Hsin, Cong. Rsch. Serv. , R45481, Affirmative Action and Equal Protection in Higher Education (2019) , https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45481 . After Brown , the Court weighed in on circumstances like those in Cooper v. Aaron in the higher education context as well, this time involving the state legislature and Governor of Mississippi’s efforts to block the admission of the first Black student to the University of Mississippi. 10 Footnote See United States v. Barnett , 376 U.S. 681, 683–86 (1964) . Ultimately, the University admitted the student, James Meredith, upon federal court order, under the escort of United States Marshals. 11 Footnote See id. at 686 . For further discussion, see also Meredith v. Fair , 313 F.2d 532 (5th Cir. 1962) (per curiam) and Meredith v. Fair , 313 F.2d 534 (5th Cir. 1962) (per curiam), cert. denied in both cases , 372 U.S. 916 (1963) .

In addition to cases involving public confrontation by state authorities, the Supreme Court, in the early 1960s, 12 Footnote Around this time, the Court repeatedly expressed concern over delays in racial desegregation. See, e.g. , Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 382 U.S. 103, 105 (1965) (stating that more than a decade has passed since we directed desegregation of public school facilities ‘with all deliberate speed,’ and [d]elays in desegregating school systems are no longer tolerable. ) (citations omitted); Watson v. City of Memphis , 373 U.S. 526, 529–33 (1963) (reversing lower court judgment inviting city to submit a plan calling for an even longer delay in effecting desegregation ; observing that it is now more than 9 years since the Court’s Brown decision and stating that Brown never contemplated that the concept of ‘deliberate speed’ would countenance indefinite delay in elimination of racial barriers in schools, let alone other public facilities not involving the same physical problems or comparable conditions ). also ruled on various other state and local practices designed to evade or delay school desegregation, such as school closings 13 Footnote In Griffin v. Prince Edward Cnty. Sch. Bd. , the Court addressed a Virginia county’s closing its public schools in 1959, in response to a federal court’s desegregation order. 377 U.S. 218, 222–23 (1964) . A private foundation was formed to operate private schools exclusively for White children in the county, and the state and county enacted tuition grants for children to attend private schools and tax concessions for those who made financial contributions to private schools. Id. at 223–24 . Discussing these state actions, the Court observed that the segregated schools although designated as private, are beneficiaries of county and state support. Id. at 230–31 . The evidence, the Court concluded, could not be clearer that the public school closure and private school operations put in place were to ensure, through measures taken by the county and the State, that white and colored children . . . would not, under any circumstances, go to the same school. Id. at 231 . The Court concluded that enjoining the state and county from paying tuition grants and giving tax credits was appropriate and necessary while public schools remained closed and further stated that the district court could require state authorities to levy taxes to raise funds adequate for reopening and maintaining a desegregated school system, if necessary to prevent further racial discrimination. Id. at 232–33 . The lower court could also issue an order to reopen schools if required to assure these petitioners that their constitutional rights will no longer be denied them. Id. at 233–34 . The time for mere ‘deliberate speed’ has run out. Id. at 234 . On other school closing legislation, see Bush v. Orleans Parish Sch. Bd. , 187 F. Supp. 42, 188 F. Supp. 916 (E.D. La. 1960) , aff’d , 365 U.S. 569 (1961) ; Hall v. St. Helena Parish Sch. Bd. , 197 F. Supp. 649 (E.D. La. 1961) , aff’d , 368 U.S. 515 (1962) . and minority transfer plans. 14 Footnote In Goss v. Knoxville Bd. of Educ. , the Court addressed the transfer plans of two Tennessee localities that allowed students to transfer from a school where they would be in the racial minority to a school where they would be in the racial majority. 373 U.S. 683, 684–87 (1963) . Here, the Court observed, the right of transfer . . . is a one-way ticket leading to but one destination, i.e. , the majority race of the transferee and continued segregation. Id. at 687 . The Court further noted that race was the only factor for the transfer, with no provision whereby a student might with equal facility transfer from a segregated to a desegregated school, which underscores the purely racial character and purpose of the transfer provisions. We hold that the transfer plans promote discrimination and are therefore invalid. Id. at 688 . See also Monroe v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Jackson , 391 U.S. 450, 458 (1968) (holding that a free transfer plan does not meet respondent’s ‘affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.’ ) (quoting Green v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. , 391 U.S. 430, 437–38 (1968) . A grade-a-year plan was implicitly disapproved in Calhoun v. Latimer , 377 U.S. 263 (1964) , vacating and remanding 321 F.2d 302 (5th Cir. 1963) . Numerous jurisdictions also adopted pupil placement laws, which automatically reassigned students to the segregated school they had previously attended, unless a state entity changed that assignment at its discretion. 15 Footnote See Green , 391 U.S. at 433 (describing Virginia’s Pupil Placement Act, which had divested local school boards of the authority to assign children to schools, and automatically reassigned children to the school they had previously attended unless a state board, upon a student’s application, assigned them to another school at its discretion). See also , e.g ., Northcross v. Bd. of Educ. of Memphis , 302 F.2d 818, 820–21, 823 (6th Cir. 1962) (describing the Tennessee Pupil Assignment Law, enacted in 1957, which among other things, assigned all children who had previously been enrolled in the schools to the same schools that they had attended under the constitutional and statutory separate racial system until graduation, unless both parents requested a transfer); Holt v. Raleigh City Bd. of Educ. , 265 F.2d 95, 98 (4th Cir. 1959) ; Gibson v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction , 272 F.2d 763, 765–66 (5th Cir. 1959) . While some lower courts had held that parents and students could not challenge such practices in federal court unless they had exhausted state law procedures, 16 Footnote See , e.g. , Covington v. Edwards , 264 F.2d 780, 781–83 (4th Cir. 1959) (affirming the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ desegregation claims because they had failed to exhaust the state law’s administrative procedures for seeking review and remedy relating to school assignments), cert. denied , 361 U.S. 840 (1959) ; Parham v. Dove , 271 F.2d 132, 137–39 (8th Cir. 1959) (concluding that the plaintiffs were required, among other things, to exhaust state law procedures for challenging racially segregating school assignments before filing suit in federal court). the Supreme Court rejected such arguments. 17 Footnote McNeese v. Cahokia Bd. of Educ. , 373 U.S. 668, 669–71, 674 (1963) (where plaintiffs brought a legal challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging intentional racial segregation in Illinois public schools, rejecting the argument that plaintiffs were required to exhaust administrative remedies under an Illinois statute before filing suit in federal court). The right alleged, the Court explained, is as plainly federal in origin and nature as those vindicated in Brown v. Board of Education , and not in any way entangled in a skein of state law that must be untangled before the federal case can proceed. 18 Footnote Id. at 674 .

Various jurisdictions also implemented freedom of choice plans 19 Footnote See generally United States v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd. of Educ. , 372 F.2d 836, 878 (5th Cir. 1966) (describing the actions of school boards located throughout the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and stating that school boards first failed to take action that might be considered a move toward integration, then adopted Pupil Placement Laws likely to lead to no more than a little token desegregation, and stating that [n]ow they turn to freedom of choice plans, which as now administered, necessarily promotes resegregation ). Other lower courts had first approved such plans, subject to the reservation that they be fairly administered. See, e.g ., Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 345 F.2d 310 (4th Cir. 1965) , rev’d on other grounds , 382 U.S. 103 (1965) ; Bowman v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. , 382 F.2d 326 (4th Cir. 1967) , vacated , 391 U.S. 430 (1968) . which generally provided that each child in a school district could choose which school to attend each year. In its 1968 decision Green v. School Board of New Kent County , 20 Footnote 391 U.S. 430 (1968) . the Court addressed whether a Virginia county school district’s freedom of choice plan was sufficient to satisfy the mandate of Brown II . 21 Footnote Id. at 431–32 . The county’s two schools—one formerly designated only for White students and the other for Black students 22 Footnote Id. at 432 . —remained segregated by race through 1964. 23 Footnote Id. at 433 . Under the county’s 1965 freedom of choice plan, each student chose between those two schools each year, and if no choice was made, students were assigned to the school previously attended. 24 Footnote Id. at 434 . The school board argued that its plan satisfied its constitutional obligations, and asserted that for the Court to rule otherwise would read the Fourteenth Amendment to require compulsory integration. 25 Footnote Id. at 437 . The Court rejected that argument as ignor[ing] the thrust of Brown II , which requires the dismantling of well-entrenched dual systems. 26 Footnote Id. Brown II , the Court stated, clearly charged [public entities] with the affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch. 27 Footnote Id. at 435–38 . Emphasizing the county’s deliberate perpetuation of a racially segregated school system well after its Brown decisions, 28 Footnote Id. at 438 . the Court concluded that the county’s plan cannot be accepted as a sufficient step to transition to a unitary school system 29 Footnote Id. at 441 . and held that a freedom of choice plan is not an end in itself in the context dismantling a dual school system. 30 Footnote Id. at 440 . In the three years under the county’s plan, the Court further observed that the system remained racially segregated and burden[ed] children and their parents with a responsibility which Brown II placed squarely on the School Board. 31 Footnote Id. at 441–42 . The Court ordered the Board to create a new plan and fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a ‘white’ school and a ‘Negro’ school, but just schools. 32 Footnote Id. at 442 . See also Raney v. Bd. of Educ. of Gould Sch. Dist. , 391 U.S. 443, 444–48 (1968) (addressing a freedom of choice plan and holding that it was inadequate to convert the state-imposed segregated school system into a unitary, nonracial school system ). The Court in other cases further held that school desegregation encompassed not only eliminating dual systems as they relate to student assignments, but also the merging of faculty, 33 Footnote Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 382 U.S. 103 (1965) (faculty desegregation is integral part of any pupil desegregation plan); United States v. Montgomery Cnty. Bd. of Educ. , 395 U.S. 225 (1969) (upholding district court order establishing a minimum racial ratio for faculty and staff so that at each school in the district had a substantially similar ratio of Black and White teachers and staff). staff, and services into one system. 34 Footnote More generally, the enactment of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and enforcement of that statute by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) also influenced the analysis of federal courts. See , e.g. , Davis v. Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs , 364 F.2d 896 (5th Cir. 1966) ; Kemp v. Beasley , 352 F.2d 14 (8th Cir. 1965) . HEW’s guidelines were also references for state and local officials.

•   Jump to essay-1 Cooper v. Aaron , 358 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1958) . See also id. at 4 ( As this case reaches us it raises questions of the highest importance to the maintenance of our federal system of government. . . . Specifically it involves actions by the Governor and Legislature of Arkansas upon the premise that they are not bound by our holding in Brown v. Bd. of Educ. ).
•   Jump to essay-2 Id. at 9 . See also id. at 8 ( While the School Board was thus going forward with its preparation for desegregating the Little Rock school system, other state authorities, in contrast, were actively pursuing a program designed to perpetuate in Arkansas the system of racial segregation which this Court had held violated the Fourteenth Amendment. ).
•   Jump to essay-3 Id. at 9–11 .
•   Jump to essay-4 Id. at 12 .
•   Jump to essay-5 Id. at 12–13 .
•   Jump to essay-6 Id. at 12 ( Their position in essence was that because of extreme public hostility, which they stated had been engendered largely by the official attitudes and actions of the Governor and the Legislature, the maintenance of a sound educational program at Central High School, with the Negro students in attendance, would be impossible. ).
•   Jump to essay-7 Id. at 14 .
•   Jump to essay-8 Id. at 16 .
•   Jump to essay-9 See generally , e.g. , United States v. Fordice , 505 U.S. 717, 721 (1992) (discussing the historical background of Mississippi’s public higher education system; stating that Mississippi launched its public university system in 1848 by establishing . . . an institution dedicated to the higher education exclusively of white persons ); Sipuel v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. of Okla. , 332 U.S. 631, 632 (1948) (analyzing an equal protection claim concerning a Black student who was concededly qualified for admission to Oklahoma’s only public law school, but had been denied admission solely because of her color ); Knight v. Alabama , 14 F.3d 1534, 1538 (11th Cir. 1994) ( In very broad terms, for more than a century following its admission to the Union in 1819, Alabama denied blacks all access to college-level public higher education and did so for the purpose of maintaining the social, economic, and political subordination of black people in the state. . . . Following Reconstruction, blacks were excluded from the universities attended by whites, relegated instead only to vastly inferior institutions that did not even begin to offer college-level courses until required to do so by a 1938 Supreme Court decision. ). For more information, see Christine J. Back & JD S. Hsin, Cong. Rsch. Serv. , R45481, Affirmative Action and Equal Protection in Higher Education (2019) , https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45481 .
•   Jump to essay-10 See United States v. Barnett , 376 U.S. 681, 683–86 (1964) .
•   Jump to essay-11 See id. at 686 . For further discussion, see also Meredith v. Fair , 313 F.2d 532 (5th Cir. 1962) (per curiam) and Meredith v. Fair , 313 F.2d 534 (5th Cir. 1962) (per curiam), cert. denied in both cases , 372 U.S. 916 (1963) .
•   Jump to essay-12 Around this time, the Court repeatedly expressed concern over delays in racial desegregation. See, e.g. , Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 382 U.S. 103, 105 (1965) (stating that more than a decade has passed since we directed desegregation of public school facilities ‘with all deliberate speed,’ and [d]elays in desegregating school systems are no longer tolerable. ) (citations omitted); Watson v. City of Memphis , 373 U.S. 526, 529–33 (1963) (reversing lower court judgment inviting city to submit a plan calling for an even longer delay in effecting desegregation ; observing that it is now more than 9 years since the Court’s Brown decision and stating that Brown never contemplated that the concept of ‘deliberate speed’ would countenance indefinite delay in elimination of racial barriers in schools, let alone other public facilities not involving the same physical problems or comparable conditions ).
•   Jump to essay-13 In Griffin v. Prince Edward Cnty. Sch. Bd. , the Court addressed a Virginia county’s closing its public schools in 1959, in response to a federal court’s desegregation order. 377 U.S. 218, 222–23 (1964) . A private foundation was formed to operate private schools exclusively for White children in the county, and the state and county enacted tuition grants for children to attend private schools and tax concessions for those who made financial contributions to private schools. Id. at 223–24 . Discussing these state actions, the Court observed that the segregated schools although designated as private, are beneficiaries of county and state support. Id. at 230–31 . The evidence, the Court concluded, could not be clearer that the public school closure and private school operations put in place were to ensure, through measures taken by the county and the State, that white and colored children . . . would not, under any circumstances, go to the same school. Id. at 231 . The Court concluded that enjoining the state and county from paying tuition grants and giving tax credits was appropriate and necessary while public schools remained closed and further stated that the district court could require state authorities to levy taxes to raise funds adequate for reopening and maintaining a desegregated school system, if necessary to prevent further racial discrimination. Id. at 232–33 . The lower court could also issue an order to reopen schools if required to assure these petitioners that their constitutional rights will no longer be denied them. Id. at 233–34 . The time for mere ‘deliberate speed’ has run out. Id. at 234 . On other school closing legislation, see Bush v. Orleans Parish Sch. Bd. , 187 F. Supp. 42, 188 F. Supp. 916 (E.D. La. 1960) , aff’d , 365 U.S. 569 (1961) ; Hall v. St. Helena Parish Sch. Bd. , 197 F. Supp. 649 (E.D. La. 1961) , aff’d , 368 U.S. 515 (1962) .
•   Jump to essay-14 In Goss v. Knoxville Bd. of Educ. , the Court addressed the transfer plans of two Tennessee localities that allowed students to transfer from a school where they would be in the racial minority to a school where they would be in the racial majority. 373 U.S. 683, 684–87 (1963) . Here, the Court observed, the right of transfer . . . is a one-way ticket leading to but one destination, i.e. , the majority race of the transferee and continued segregation. Id. at 687 . The Court further noted that race was the only factor for the transfer, with no provision whereby a student might with equal facility transfer from a segregated to a desegregated school, which underscores the purely racial character and purpose of the transfer provisions. We hold that the transfer plans promote discrimination and are therefore invalid. Id. at 688 . See also Monroe v. Bd. of Comm’rs of Jackson , 391 U.S. 450, 458 (1968) (holding that a free transfer plan does not meet respondent’s ‘affirmative duty to take whatever steps might be necessary to convert to a unitary system in which racial discrimination would be eliminated root and branch.’ ) (quoting Green v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. , 391 U.S. 430, 437–38 (1968) . A grade-a-year plan was implicitly disapproved in Calhoun v. Latimer , 377 U.S. 263 (1964) , vacating and remanding 321 F.2d 302 (5th Cir. 1963) .
•   Jump to essay-15 See Green , 391 U.S. at 433 (describing Virginia’s Pupil Placement Act, which had divested local school boards of the authority to assign children to schools, and automatically reassigned children to the school they had previously attended unless a state board, upon a student’s application, assigned them to another school at its discretion). See also , e.g ., Northcross v. Bd. of Educ. of Memphis , 302 F.2d 818, 820–21, 823 (6th Cir. 1962) (describing the Tennessee Pupil Assignment Law, enacted in 1957, which among other things, assigned all children who had previously been enrolled in the schools to the same schools that they had attended under the constitutional and statutory separate racial system until graduation, unless both parents requested a transfer); Holt v. Raleigh City Bd. of Educ. , 265 F.2d 95, 98 (4th Cir. 1959) ; Gibson v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction , 272 F.2d 763, 765–66 (5th Cir. 1959) .
•   Jump to essay-16 See , e.g. , Covington v. Edwards , 264 F.2d 780, 781–83 (4th Cir. 1959) (affirming the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ desegregation claims because they had failed to exhaust the state law’s administrative procedures for seeking review and remedy relating to school assignments), cert. denied , 361 U.S. 840 (1959) ; Parham v. Dove , 271 F.2d 132, 137–39 (8th Cir. 1959) (concluding that the plaintiffs were required, among other things, to exhaust state law procedures for challenging racially segregating school assignments before filing suit in federal court).
•   Jump to essay-17 McNeese v. Cahokia Bd. of Educ. , 373 U.S. 668, 669–71, 674 (1963) (where plaintiffs brought a legal challenge under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging intentional racial segregation in Illinois public schools, rejecting the argument that plaintiffs were required to exhaust administrative remedies under an Illinois statute before filing suit in federal court).
•   Jump to essay-18 Id. at 674 .
•   Jump to essay-19 See generally United States v. Jefferson Cnty. Bd. of Educ. , 372 F.2d 836, 878 (5th Cir. 1966) (describing the actions of school boards located throughout the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and stating that school boards first failed to take action that might be considered a move toward integration, then adopted Pupil Placement Laws likely to lead to no more than a little token desegregation, and stating that [n]ow they turn to freedom of choice plans, which as now administered, necessarily promotes resegregation ). Other lower courts had first approved such plans, subject to the reservation that they be fairly administered. See, e.g ., Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 345 F.2d 310 (4th Cir. 1965) , rev’d on other grounds , 382 U.S. 103 (1965) ; Bowman v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. , 382 F.2d 326 (4th Cir. 1967) , vacated , 391 U.S. 430 (1968) .
•   Jump to essay-20 391 U.S. 430 (1968) .
•   Jump to essay-21 Id. at 431–32 .
•   Jump to essay-22 Id. at 432 .
•   Jump to essay-23 Id. at 433 .
•   Jump to essay-24 Id. at 434 .
•   Jump to essay-25 Id. at 437 .
•   Jump to essay-26 Id.
•   Jump to essay-27 Id. at 435–38 .
•   Jump to essay-28 Id. at 438 .
•   Jump to essay-29 Id. at 441 .
•   Jump to essay-30 Id. at 440 .
•   Jump to essay-31 Id. at 441–42 .
•   Jump to essay-32 Id. at 442 . See also Raney v. Bd. of Educ. of Gould Sch. Dist. , 391 U.S. 443, 444–48 (1968) (addressing a freedom of choice plan and holding that it was inadequate to convert the state-imposed segregated school system into a unitary, nonracial school system ).
•   Jump to essay-33 Bradley v. Sch. Bd. of Richmond , 382 U.S. 103 (1965) (faculty desegregation is integral part of any pupil desegregation plan); United States v. Montgomery Cnty. Bd. of Educ. , 395 U.S. 225 (1969) (upholding district court order establishing a minimum racial ratio for faculty and staff so that at each school in the district had a substantially similar ratio of Black and White teachers and staff).
•   Jump to essay-34 More generally, the enactment of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and enforcement of that statute by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) also influenced the analysis of federal courts. See , e.g. , Davis v. Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs , 364 F.2d 896 (5th Cir. 1966) ; Kemp v. Beasley , 352 F.2d 14 (8th Cir. 1965) . HEW’s guidelines were also references for state and local officials.