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Brown vs. Board of Education

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Brown vs. Board of Education
The Brown vs. Board of Education case took place in the 1950s and developed from several court cases involving school segregation, which all started with one black 3rd grader named Linda Brown wanting to go to an all white school. In the case the U.S. Supreme Court declared it was unconstitutional to create separate schools for children on the basis of race. The case ranked as one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century, which helped launch the modern civil rights movement and led to other court decisions that struck down all forms of legalized racial discrimination and ultimately led to desegregation not only in the South, but throughout the entire country. Just as Brown vs. Board of Education eliminated separate schools in public education based o race and began to change the public 's views on racial discrimination, in the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus believed that everyone should get a fair trial regardless of race and tried to teach his children about everyone being equal under the law.

The Brown vs. Board of Education case combined four cases: Brown itself, Briggs vs. Elliott, Davis vs. County School Board of Prince Edward County, and Gebhart vs. Belton. All of these cases were sponsored by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The NAACP was led by W.E.B. Du Bois and Arthur and Joel Spingarn. "It was an organization dedicated to fighting for racial equality and ending segregation; equal rights. It challenged segregation through its legal Defense and Education Fund," (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (MSN Encarta).

The Brown vs. Board of Education decision was the first to go against the Plessy vs. Ferguson "separate but equal" doctrine, whereby the practice of segregation was permitted as long as the separate facilities were "equal." Despite the "equality" purported under the "separate but equal" doctrine, segregated schools reflected a grave inequality between the quality



Cited: (In MLA Format) "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka." Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2005. © 1997-2005. Microsoft Corporation. 21 October 2005 . "Brown v. Board of Education: 50th Anniversary (Research Feature)." Facts On File World News Digest @ FACTS.com. May 2004. Facts On File News Services. 25 October 2005 . "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)." Columbus Encyclopedia 6th Edition. ©2005. Infoplease. 25 October 2005 .

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