Brown v. Board of Education ::: Project ETERNITY

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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) was a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court which explicitly outlawed de jure racial segregation of public education facilities (legal establishment of separate government-run schools for blacks and whites), ruling so on the grounds that the doctrine of "separate but equal" public education could never truly provide black Americans with facilities of the same standards available to white Americans. A companion case dealt with the constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia, (not a state and therefore not subject to the Fourteenth Amendment), Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954)*.

Background

For much of the 90 years preceding 1954, race relations in the United States had been dominated by segregation, a system of racial separation which, while in name providing for separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, in truth perpetuated inferior accommodation, services, and treatment for black Americans.

Brown is undoubtedly the most famous of a group of U.S. Supreme Court cases which principally deal with the struggle of black Americans to recover the rights of citizenship expressly given to them by the Constitution of the United States. The group also includes Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932)*, Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227 (1940)*, Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944)*, Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948)*, Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)*, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950)*, NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449 (1958)*, Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U.S. 454 (1960)* and Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964)*.

The case

In 1951, a suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas on behalf of Linda Brown, a third grader from Topeka, Kansas who was forced to walk a mile to her segregated black school, while a white school was only seven blocks from her house. Brown's suit had the backing of the NAACP, whose chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall--himself appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967--argued the case. The District Court ruled in favor of the Board of Education, citing the U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896)*, which allowed state laws requiring "separate but equal" facilities in railway cars for blacks and whites.

The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined four cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), and Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware). All were NAACP-sponsored cases.

The decision

The case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court. On 17 May 1954 the Warren Court handed down a unanimous 9-0 decision which stated, in no uncertain terms, that "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

The 17 May 1954 decision reversed the Court's previous decision in Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, (1899)*, which had specifically validated the segregation of public schools. Brown did not, however, result in the immediate desegregation of America's public schools, nor did it mandate desegregation of other public facilities, such as restaurants or bathrooms, which would not be accomplished until the formal overturning of Plessy by Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, it was a giant step forwards for the US civil rights movement, placing the weight of the Federal Judiciary squarely behind the forces of desegregation.

Brown is often referred to as Brown I, because the following year, 1955, the Court completed its ruling. In this second Brown decision, "Brown II," the Warren Court ordered the states' compliance with Brown I "with all deliberate speed." Even so, formal compliance with the provisions of these two cases was not expedited, and in the South most public schools would not be desegregated until about 1970 under the Nixon administration. Nearly twenty years after Brown school desegregation would come to the court's attention again in two cases involving the use of busing to integrate students across school districts: Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971)* and Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)*.

Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote:

Social Implications

Not everyone accepted the Brown v. Board of Education decision. In Virginia, Senator Harry F. Byrd declared Massive Resistance movement that included the closing of schools rather than desegregating them. For more implications of the Brown decision, see Desegregation.