Brown v Board of Education is a Supreme Court case from 1954 which ruled that segregation in schools violates the fourteenth amendment. An order from the Topeka School Board in Kansas forced an 11-year-old girl to attend a school for black children, which caused the NAACP to take on the case, leading it to the supreme court. Four more cases involving segregation also reached the Supreme Court in 1954.These cases were upheld by an organized legal campaign, consisting of African American lawyers from Howard University Law School and the NAACP. The hard work and struggle to “fulfil the American dream set in motion sweeping changes in American society” when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional (National Museum of American History, Behring Center). Chief Justice Earl Warren recognized that people would need time to adjust to these newly desegregated schools and realized that gradual change was necessary; he chose not to set a schedule for desegregation. Although, in 1955 ‘all deliberate speed’ was called for by the Supreme Court.  

The Brown decision was a cornerstone of the Civil Rights Movement, establishing that “separate but equal” is not in fact equal at all. This was a significant ruling because it directly reversed the decision of Plessy v Fergusion (1896). Plessy v Fergusion had ruled that segregation was not a violation of the fourteenth amendment and that the “separate but equal” doctrine would provide sanction for segregation in public places. Undoing Plessy v Ferguson marked a great turning point in the history of race relations.  

While the impact of Brown v Board of Education was a radical advancement of the time, it is important to recognize that this individual case did not solve racial inequality. The case of Brown left our nation with a promise, and that promise still hasn’t been completely fulfilled. Schools remained segregated even after Brown and are still somewhat segregated now because the location of neighborhoods remains racially and ethnically segregated. Due to systemic racism, people of color are more likely to have a low socioeconomic status. They live in neighborhoods with less adequate school districts than those found in neighborhoods of people with a higher socioeconomic status. Once housing becomes desegrated, further desegregation of schools can follow (Rothstein). In 1954, schools for Black children suffered enormous resource shortages, and while these inequalities have grown significantly smaller over time, students of color often require greater resources than middle class white students. Some of these resources include early childhood education, smaller class sizes, more skilled teachers, and full-service school health clinics. These resources can be harder for people of color to obtain due to their lower socioeconomic status, which shows that as a country, we are still working to fulfil the promise left by the Brown case.  

Works Cited 

Brown V Board of Education of Topeka (1954). (1999). In D. Townson, A dictionary of contemporary history - 1945 to the present. Blackwell Publishers. Credo Reference: https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/bkchist/brown_v_board_of_education_of_topeka_1954/0?institutionId=2001  

Rothstein, R. (2017, April). Brown v. board at 60: Why have we been so disappointed? what have we learned? Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://www.epi.org/publication/brown-at-60-why-have-we-been-so-disappointed-what-have-we-learned/. 

Staff of the National Museum of American History, Behring Center. (n.d.). Separate Is Not Equal. Separate is not equal - brown v. Board of Education. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/index.html.