Brown V. Board of Education
Brown vs. Board of Education Although the thirteenth amendment “abolished slavery,” the fourteenth amendment granted “due process/equal right clause,” and the fifteenth amendment granted African American men “the right to vote,” African American were still dealing with oppression. Later, the nineteenth amendment would grant all women the right to vote. Yet, it would take years for African Americans to overcome legal and social oppression, and they will continue to fight. The South, however, did not care and did not want African Americans to be socially, physical or emotionally equal to them. The South created the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws stated that “black and white could not use the same facilities, ride the same bus, attend the same school, and etc” (Kennedy 2011). Many African American tried to fight against the laws, and one man named Homer Plessy fought against his arrest for not getting up and allowing a white man to have his seat in New Orleans, Louisiana. Plessy’s case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled against Plessy. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” (Knappman 468). Despite the Supreme Court decision-Plessy and other cases, African Americans continued to fight against the Jim Crow Laws. The National Association of the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was helping the people fight against the Jim Crow. “Beginning in 1930s, though, the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund began to make progress in overcoming legally sanctioned discrimination” ("US Courts" ). In September 1950, when Linda Brown tried to enter the third grade at whites-only school and was denied, her father sought help from the NAACP. In 1954, the case that came to be known as the Brown v. Board of Education which was actually five separate cases that was heard by the Supreme Court concerning the issue of segregation in public schools, made its way to the top court of the land. Those cases seeking admissions