Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, KS

The Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka, KS was a legal case that ended segregation in public schools. The Brown vs. the Board of Education was the collection of five cases (Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia and the District of Columbia) that were brought together under one name. The case was brought to the Supreme Court by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (NPS, 2011). According to the Library of Congress, “the NAACP Legal Defense Fund assembled a team of experts, including John A. Davis, a professor of political science at Lincoln University, Mabel Smythe, an economist, and psychologist Kenneth Clark, and scholars John Hope Franklin, C. Vann Woodward, and Horace Mann Bond, to conduct research,” (2010). Research conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark proving that segregation negatively impacted the personalities of young African American students by causing them to feel inferior and have a sense of self hatred was the driving force of the NAACP’s case (Library of Congress, 2010). After years of fighting the ‘equal but separate’ public school systems a ruling outlawing segregation was finally reached in 1954.

Sources

Library of Congress. “Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.” Library of Congress. June 23rd, 2010. Web. Retrieved from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/brown/brown-brown.html

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior. “Brown vs. Board of Education: History and Culture.” National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior. March 10th, 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://www.nps.gov/brvb/historyculture/index.htm