Thursday, April 11, 2013

LAD #37 Brown v. Board of Education

In Topeka, Kansas a third grader, Linda Brown, had to walk a long distance in order to get to her school even though there was a school that was truly in walking distance from her house. However, that school was an all white school which normally would not be a problem except for the fact that Linda Brown was an African American. She wasn't allowed to go to the white school because she was of a different race/skin color. Her father attempted to enroll her at the school, but the principal shot it down so Oliver Brown went to the NAACP. The NAACP argued on the side of Linda Brown and a case was brought to the Supreme Court. The Board of Education argued that going to a segregated school would just prepare the children for the segregation (and discrimination) that they would have to face when they became adults. The judges agreed with the expert witnesses' reports that segregated schools had a detrimental effect on African American children. Chief Justice Earl Warren read the unanimous decision of the court which was to allow Linda Brown to go to school at the white school (basically integrating schools). This shot down the originally upheld Plessy v. Ferguson and ended the "separate, but equal" belief. The verdict, however, did not end segregation in public places, but it was a start considering this is now coming close to one hundred years after the Civil War.

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