Brown v. Board of Education - Fight for Civil Rights

Brown v. Board of Education – Fight for Civil Rights

From my Global Sixties course I have taken a great interest in the Civil Rights Movement. This involves a lot of law cases which I find to be a particularly interesting part of history as they can make a huge difference to people’s lives. Also, I am aspiring to become a lawyer, which contributes to my interest in this.

Therefore, the case of Brown v. Board of Education is fascinating to look into. This is a case from the United States which was seen as a big success within the Civil Rights Movement as it ruled to get rid of segregation within schools.

This particular case actually has five different cases combined within this title. They were all to do with segregation in schools so they came about to be joint as one. There were different reasons for why schools should not be segregated anymore. The most important one was that by having segregated schools it broke the equal protection clause. This was because the schools that the white children went to were better than those for the black children.

This case decided that having separate schools for white and black students was unconstitutional. The official quote to the decision on this case is stated below:

“segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law; for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the Negro group.”

Therefore, this was a huge move in ending segregation and attempting to make society more equal.

The years 1954-68 were the years of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Brown v. Board of Education took place in 1954 so this marks one of the first steps towards reaching civil rights for African-Americans.

One reason I find this case especially interesting is because a few years ago while I was in Washington, we saw a parade that schools were involved in. The different schools that took part in this parade appeared to be very much either all black students or all white students. This gave me an interest in this case as it made me wonder how effective the case decision had been.

By looking into the case of Brown v. Board of Education I was able to observe that there was no set plan to get the schools to become integrated. The case simply ruled that desegregation should take place with ‘deliberate speed’. There was a second ruling called Brown II which encouraged the process further, but it still took years to begin to properly enforce, which may explain what I observed.  
Annabelle Billington