Brown v. Board of Education
In Topeka Kansas a situation occurred that changed the United States of America.
Known as a Civil Rights Milestone, in 1954, the court case of Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka was one of the biggest court cases in the 20th century. Thirteen
African American Topeka parents filed a lawsuit against their respective school district to
overturn its law of racial segregation. The Kansas law stated “Topeka Board of
Education, permitted districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black
and white students with community populations over 15,000.”1 Can one court case
inspire people so much that it evolves into a movement that changes the way people are
treated and respected?
Oliver Leon Brown, a local minister and welder in Topeka, was the lead plaintiff
in this case fighting for his daughter, Linda, to attend a closer white school. For Linda to
get to the nearest white school was a few minutes away. On the other hand the black
school was much further, involving crossing a dangerous railroad. This court case would
have never taken place if Brown and 12 other parents, trying to get a better education for
their children, would have never applied to Sumner Elementary and other white schools
and got rejected. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) carefully watched these respective parents whose kids got rejected from these
white schools and told them that their rights were being denied. The Brown case was
arranged and set in motion by the NAACP who provided lawyers for this case. The
NAACP’s help in this case was invaluable. This was just the start of a big transformation
that was going to happen.
1 Miranda Connie, Brown v. Board of Education, Congress of Racial Equality, 4.
During this time the treatment of blacks was unjust and unlawful. There were still
African Americans being killed for things such as looking at a white woman, talking to a
white man before spoken to.2 They were fed up with all of the mistreatment and this was
their time to get equality for their families and their children. The black schools were less
superior to white schools. For every $36 dollars spend on children in white school, $4
dollars was spend on children in black schools. Each time a new book is published the
white school gets the new book and the blacks get the 3-4 year old hand-me-down book
with outdated information. The books the African Americans receive are inferior to the
books the white schools receive. Due to them being colored they didn’t have enough
school supplies, outdated textbooks and much crowed classrooms, making it even harder
for them to learn. With very poor labs and facilities as well there was no way to get a
good education. Black teachers are believed to earn half of what white teachers earn. If
