"Brown vs. Board of Education" Essay by Peter Pen

This paper explains that the only way to overturn "Plessy vs. Ferguson," which was the precedent set in 1896 that allowed separate but equal school systems for blacks and whites, was to prove legitimately by presenting valid evidence, which supported the NAACP challenge, that separate could not be equal. The author points out that Thurgood Marshall, then lawyer for the NAACP, turned to social scientist Kenneth B. Clark, who gathered convincing evidence that ultimately proved segregation in public schools was a direct violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The paper explains that experiments demonstrated that, as a colored child observed the society in which he or she lived, that child associated whiteness with superior advantage, achievement, progress, and power, all of which were perceived essential to being successful in the competitive American culture.