Brown v board of education

By: Mr. Pirring

Attention Getter

• Imagine if you were isolated for something as simple as your hair color.

Separate? YesEqual? Not even close

Background to the Case

• Plessy v Ferguson 1896, the precedent that was established was “Separate But Equal.”

Background to the Case

• Linda Brown, a young African American, was forced to go to a distant school even though she lived closely to an all white school.

• She had to travel a dangerous route to school, including traveling across railroad tracks, to attend a school that was not very good.

Background to the Case

• Linda Brown had to walk six blocks to her bus stop to go to a school that was 1.4 miles away.

• The all white school was only 7 blocks away from her house.

Background to the Case

• For much of the ninety years preceding the Brown case, race relations in the U.S. had been dominated by racial segregation.

Background to the Case

• This policy had been endorsed in 1896 by the United States Supreme Court case of Plessy vs Ferguson, which held that as long as the separate facilities for the separate races were "equal," segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment ("no State shall... deny to any person... the equal protection of the laws.")

Parties Involved

• Linda Brown was represented by the NAACP.

• Her lawyer was Thurgood Marshall.

• There were 13 families and 20 children that were representing the plaintiffs.

Parties Involved

• The defense party was the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas