The Significance of Brown v. Board of Education Essay -- Case Review

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States was confronted with the controversial Brown v. Board of Education case that challenged segregation in public education. Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark Supreme Court case because it called into question the morality and legality of racial segregation in public schools, a long-standing tradition in the Jim Crow South, and threatened to have monumental and everlasting implications for blacks and whites in America. In 1951, Oliver L. Brown, his wife Darlene, and eleven other African American parents filed a class-action lawsuit against the Board of Education of Topeka on behalf of their twenty children for denying colored children the right to attend segregated white schools and sought to change the policy of racial segregation in the school district. The plaintiffs had been working closely with the leadership of the local Topeka NAACP to overturn segregation in public schools. In the fall of 1951, the parents tried to enroll t heir children in the neighborhood school nearest to their home, but they were denied enrollment in the white schools and told to attend segregated black schools. The District Court acknowledged that segregation in public education had a harmful effect on black children, but denied the need to desegregate schools because â€Å"the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors† in Topeka, Kansas were all equal (Brown v. Board of Ed, 366). The District Court ruled according to the precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson by the Supreme Court in 1896 and upheld state laws permitting, or requiring, segregation in public education. African Americans were inspired to defy laws discriminating against colored people and engage in nonviolent actions by the ev... ...ricans hope that they would be free from discrimination and given equal opportunity in all aspects of their lives. The Brown v. Board of Education case is often noted for initiating racial integration and launching the civil rights movement. Works Cited Hoffman, Elizabeth Cobbs, Edward J. Blum, and Jon Gjerde, 3rd eds. Major Problems in American History: Volume II: Since 1865. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. Print. Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. â€Å"4. Roosevelt Identifies the ‘Four Freedoms’ at Stake in the War, 1941.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 271-73. United Nations. â€Å"1. The United Nations Approves a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 363-65. United States Supreme Court. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483-496 (1954). â€Å"2. The Supreme Court Rules on Brown v. Board of Education, 1954.† Hoffman, Blum, and Gjerde 365-66.