Research Paper on Brown Vs Board of Education: The Case of The Century

The NHD theme is Conflict and Compromise, and our topic, Brown vs. The Board of Education, relates to it. The conflict was that the government ignored the arrangements of the 1896 case, Plessy vs. Ferguson. This led to the black schools not receiving any funding from the government, and the white schools received a variety of funding which caused them to be in the best condition possible. People started rioting over rights for black schools. The compromise was that at the end of the Brown vs. the Board of Education cases, the government decided that schools will no longer be segregated. They stated it defied the Plessy V. Ferguson agreement. Slavery was introduced to the Americas in 1619. They were brought in by the British to the colony of Jamestown. Slaves were mistreated and thought of as property. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the USA, is known for stopping slavery from extending. Having slaves was still legal, and their kids still were born into slavery. Slavery was finally expelled from the United States of America in 1865 when the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was declared. The amendment claimed, 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.'

Segregation officially began in 1877, 12 years after slavery was banned from the USA. The Jim Crow Laws had a big part in the separation of black and whites. The Jim Crow Laws' purpose was to divide the African Americans from the Whites. The Laws claimed that the colored had to use different things, such as railroad cars, hotels, theatres, restaurants, schools, water fountains, etc. If the Jim Crow Laws' were challenged, or broken, the protester was either denied jobs and, sometimes loans from local banks, or they were beaten, arrested or killed.

Segregation means to split someone or something apart due to race, religion, gender, or sexuality. The Jim Crow Laws were taking over the USA, but Homer Adolph Plessy decided to stand up to segregation. Plessy was born on March 17, 1862 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was born into a mixed family. Plessy was partially black and partially white.​ At age 30, Plessy stood up against it for the first time, and in 1890, he started the Plessy vs. Ferguson. To start up the case he sat in a white rail road car. The police arrested him, and he challenged the Government for the people. The case quickly went up to Supreme Court. He argued that the Government was violating the rights of the 13th and 14th Amendments. The 14th amendments stated, 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States​ and subject to jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.' They made an agreement on the 14th amendment. In 1896, the Supreme Court voted against Plessy. The Supreme Court soon realized that Louisiana Law stated that both the white a colored rail road cars will be in the same condition, so they didn't make segregation illegal. They said everything would be separate but equal. This was the worst choice they decided on. This led to a faster spread of the Jim Crow Laws.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, was founded by W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villard, William English Walling, Henry Moskowitz, Archibald Grimke, and Lillian Wald, on February 12, 1909 in Springfield, Illinois. This group was against segregation. On there official webpage, they have stated, 'The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.' NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLEThe NAACP logo and some members of the NACCP. Segregation was a big part of public schools of the USA. The government ignored the arrangement of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case by segregating public facilities. The arrangement was that everything would split up but they would posses the same condition, but this wasn't true. Schools were segregated. Kids were split up into different schools. There were black and white schools. The black schools didn't receive any help from the government and the white schools were in the best condition. This led to the Brown Vs. The Board of Education.

The Brown Vs. The Board of Education was 5 cases. The cases were called Belton V. Gebhart, Bolling V. Sharpe, Briggs V. Elliot, Davis V. County School Board of Prince Edward County, and Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka. Their purpose was to desegregate the schools of the USA. Oliver Brown, a parent of a segregated child, wanted to abolish segregation in schools like many other parents. He finally filed a lawsuit in 1954, which would eventually become the landmark case called Brown vs. The Board Of Education Of Topeka. The Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools defied the Plessy vs. Ferguson doctrine of the 14th Amendment. Now it is illegal to segregate schools. This final case put an end to all the segregation in schools and more. The last school to desegregate was desegregated on May 17, 2016.

When the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in schools did not comply with the 'Separate but Equal' Plessy vs. Ferguson doctrine, schools were integrated. This ruling sparked the Civil Rights Movement. Now schools are diverse. In fact, it is now against the law to segregate schools. It also affected the lives of many African Americans, without this law African-American kids across the USA would be in terrible educational conditions, and African Americans would still be mistreated and disrespected by others. The most significant part about our topic is that without the Brown vs The Board Of Education case, segregation might have been around still in the 21st century.