Equality/Equal Protection To Win Equality by Law: The Road to Brown v. Board of Education 1. The story of Brown v. Board of Education begins decades earlier than 1954. 2. It is the story of how a dedicated group of lawyers carried on a concerted campaign to use law and the courts to enforce legal promises of equality—promises that until then had often been empty. 3. The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, guarantee the equal protection of the law, but the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 upheld a Louisiana law requiring segregation on railway cars, ushering in the "Jim Crow" era in America. 4. With the Supreme Court's sanction, enforced segregation kept blacks and other people of color from many of the facilities enjoyed by white citizens across much of the United States. Public schools, transportation facilities, residential neighborhoods, public and private theaters, restaurants, even public lavatories and drinking fountains were designated for the exclusive use of "whites," while separate—and supposedly equal—facilities were set aside for "coloreds." 5. Any hope of changing these laws through democratic processes was stripped away as states erected legal barriers to the exercise of the vote by black citizens. And in courthouses across the land, blacks were systematically excluded from service on juries. A Concerted Legal Campaign 6. Beginning in the 1930s, the NAACP evolved a strategy of using the law to improve the treatment and status of African Americans. This campaign was carried out by a group of black attorneys that included Charles Hamilton Houston, Robert L. Carter, William T. Coleman, William Henry Hastie, George Hayes, Oliver Hill, Constance Baker Motley, James M. Nabrit, Jr., Louis Redding, Spottswood W. Robinson, III, and—perhaps most famous of all—Thurgood Marshall. 7. In the decades leading up to Brown, these lawyers progressively chipped away at the legal structure fortifying segregation. All-white jury pools, covenants that restricted ownership of property in certain neighborhoods by race, laws disenfranchising black voters, and segregated graduate and professional schools were all challenged, often successfully. Attention then turned to the politically charged arena of public school segregation. 8. The legal strategy focused first on insisting that states take the Plessy standard seriously. "White" and "colored" schools were certainly separate, but in most cases they were far from equal. District by district, legal challenges were brought insisting that black schools be brought up to par with their "whites only" equivalents. 9. This strategy, however, required fighting district by district, and did not directly challenge the doctrine of "separate but equal." In 1950, the NAACP resolved that nothing other than education of all children on a non-segregated basis would be an acceptable outcome. Work began on laying the final groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education. Brown v. Board 10. The case known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas actually included appeals from decisions in four separate states: Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, and Virginia. Each case represented individual acts of courage by families willing to face local resistance—even hostility—to bring an end to segregation. 11. School conditions in these four test cases varied, from stark differences in South Carolina between the "colored" and "white" schools to a closer parity in the Topeka, Kansas, schools. In all four states, however, the schools were segregated by law, and the NAACP's position was that equality could not be achieved until segregation was brought to an end. 12. Although the four decisions in the trial courts did not completely end segregation in any of the districts, the NAACP position was strengthened by some of the decisions. In South Carolina, Judge Julius Waties Waring dissented from the opinion of his two colleagues who also heard the case, declaring that "segregation is per se inequality." In Kansas, the three-judge panel attached to its opinion a finding of fact that segregation has a detrimental effect on black children, especially when it is enforced by law. In Delaware, a state court ordered admission of the black plaintiffs to white schools, on the grounds that segregated schools were not equal, thus violating the Plessy standard. The judge wrote, "[w]hen a plaintiff shows to the satisfaction of a court that there is an existing and continuing violation of the 'separate but equal' doctrine, he is entitled to have made available to him the state facilities which have been shown to be superior." It was the first time a court order had forced a segregated white school to admit black children. 13. The four cases were argued on appeal to the United States Supreme Court in 1952, with the issue being whether segregation deprived students of equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court requested reargument of the case in 1953. Before the reargument could occur, Chief Justice Vinson died and was replaced on the Court by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Under his guidance, a unanimous Court on May 17, 1954, issued its decision declaring that segregation of the public schools was unconstitutional. A landmark in the struggle for equality under the law for all Americans had been achieved. Discussion Questions The first NAACP legal strategy focused on making "separate but equal" facilities truly equal. What were the advantages of this strategy? The disadvantages? The NAACP later shifted to a broader strategy seeking to overthrow desegregation entirely. What were the risks of this strategy? The rewards? Though the arguments in Brown focused on the question of whether desegregated schools violated the 14th Amendment, the decision quickly became the basis for striking down segregated parks, swimming pools, public libraries, and the like. Was it appropriate that the reach of the decision extended into other areas? Is that akin to legislating from the bench? Speech Ideas/Talking Points Home | Equality/Equal Protection Home Tips on Volunteering Home