In 1896, the case Plessy v. Furguson declared segregation ‘separate but equal.’ This also legalized Jim Crow laws, which were facilities segregated based on race.
55 years later in Topeka, Kansas, Linda Brown, a third-grader, was living in the post-Plessy v Ferguson era, meaning she was legally required to go to a black-only school. However, the school was far away and she had to walk a dangerous route every morning just to make it to the bus. Meanwhile, the white school was only six blocks away.
(usatoday.com)
The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, encouraged the Brown family to file a lawsuit against the school district. Thurgood Marshall, later to become an associate justice on the supreme court, argued the case based on the fact that the schools were separated purely by race. Although unusual, both schools had similar facilities and good teachers. They were separate and equal, but he argued that it fostered feelings of inferiority and racism.
(smithsonianmag.com)
He used the 14th amendment to support his argument, the same one that Homer Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson used. The first section of the fourteenth amendment states: “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'' (constitutioncenter.org).
Marshall, on behalf of the NAACP, argued that segregation based on race was unconstitutional. The court agreed with Brown’s side of the case, that ‘separate but equal’ did indeed violate the fourteenth amendment. In the words of Chief Justice Earl Warren: We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” (supreme.justia.com)
(gse.harvard.edu)
By overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. The Board of Education began a new era of progress for African Americans. However, it did only apply to schools, so Jim Crow laws were still in place. In the coming years, this progress picked up, beginning with the civil rights act of 1964.
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xiv
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/14/06/brown-60-milliken-40
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