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Sterling Moses
Williams
Honors American Literature
10 February 2015
Brown vs. Board of Education

In 1896, the Plessy vs. Ferguson case made it legal to segregate schools. This caused blacks to
be treated inhumanely, and led to children suffering from the way the adults acted. The children
didnt understand the difference between African American and Caucasian. All they saw was
different colored children have to be separated from other colored children. Mr. Oliver Brown
didnt like what he saw. He wanted to change the lives for the children, instead of making them
go through something horrible that the adults decided.
Brown thought that Topekas racial segregation violated the Constitutions Equal Protection
Clause because the citys black and white schools were not equal to each other and never could
be. The Federal District dismissed his claim, and ruled that the schools were only substantially
equal enough to be constitutional under the Plessy doctrine. Brown then appealed to the Supreme
Court which led to a review to all the school segregation actions. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote
the unanimous vote by the court, which decided that racial segregation of children in public
schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment which states that, no
state shall make or enforce any law which shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the
equal protection of the laws.

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The court said that they did not intend to have segregation in public schools, but did not
prohibit integration. They found that any child denied of education will not become successful in
life. They provided universal education for both whites and blacks. They also found that young
black females had low racial self-esteem after reviewing psychological studies. The court
concluded that separating black and white children is inherently unequal and will always be
unconstitutional. Thus Plessy vs. Ferguson was overruled. A year later the Brown II case ruled
that all states were to integrate their schools with all deliberate speed.

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Works Cited
"Brown v. Board of Education (1954)." Our Documents -. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.
"Brown v. Board of Education." Brown v. Board of Education. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.
"Civil Rights: Brown v. Board of Education I (1954)." Civil Rights: Brown v. Board of
Education I (1954). N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2015.
PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 02 Feb. 2015.
United States. National Park Service. "Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site (U.S.
National Park Service)." National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, 27 Jan. 2015.
Web. 01 Feb. 2015.