Brown+vs.+the+Board+of+Education

by Taylor Grade 6



In the beginning of 1954, schools in America were both segregated and integrated. In some places, people were content with segregated schools. Some white people did not want to go to school with African Americans. There were also African Americans who did not want to go to school with whites. They thought that children of color learned better if they were taught by African American teachers and were around other children like themselves.

However, many very famous civil rights leaders felt that segregation was wrong. Even if black students had their own schools, these schools were not equal to the white schools because there were fewer black schools which meant kids had to walk further to get to school. Also, the books were older than the books in the white schools, and some schools did not have gyms or auditoriums or even indoor toilets. These leaders knew they would have to prove that separate but equal was not really equal ever.

By 1954, several cases about segregation were headed to the Supreme Court. These cases were rolled together into the case known as “Brown versus Board of Education. “Brown” was Oliver L. Brown, father of Linda Brown, a student in Topeka Kansas.

In Kansas, the families who were part of the court case were chosen very carefully. Each student in the case had to travel a long way past a school for white students in order to attend segregated schools. The lawyers were trying to show that the students had been harmed by not being able to enroll in their neighborhood school.

It all came up to a conclusion on May 17, 1954. History was going to change for ever and ever in America. The Supreme Court ruled that “Separate but equal” was unequal, anywhere, anytime. They said that school segregation should end and schools should integrate as soon as possible. However, the court did not give a set time that schools had to integrate, so some schools took their time and waited for up to twenty five years. And some did exactly what the Supreme Court said to do.