The Lasting Impact of "Brown vs. Board of Education" Term Paper

The Lasting Impact of "Brown vs. Board of Education"
A study of the famous case "Brown vs. Board of Education" and how it has impacted American society.
# 149454 | 1,399 words | 7 sources | MLA | 2011 | US
Published on Dec 18, 2011 in African-American Studies (Civil Rights) , History (U.S. Baby Boom Years 1945-1965) , Law (Historic Trials)


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Description:

The paper describes the case which ended with the Supreme Court's decision that the segregation of students on the basis of race violates the 14th Amendment. The paper goes on to discuss how with this decision, the Civil Rights movement abandoned its previous allowance of the idea of separate-but-equal and began taking a more proactive approach to garnering equal rights for blacks. The paper points out that this was the first time in American history that a court ruling had such a large-scale and controversial impact upon the country; it not only set a precedent regarding the segregation of races, it set a precedent regarding how American domestic policy gets decided. The paper asserts that this was not only important for blacks but also for Asian-Americans, women, and later Latinos and Middle Easterners.

From the Paper:

"Then in 1951 in Topeka, Kansas, a man named Oliver Brown tried to enroll his black daughter, Linda Brown, into an all-white school. Only a third-grader, the girl was forced "to walk one mile through a railroad switchyard to get to her black elementary school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away" (Cozzens, "Brown"). The girl was denied acceptance and together with the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), Brown filed suit against the Board of Education. A number of other African Americans joined in the lawsuit, two-hundred all told, but the attorneys representing the case decided to use Oliver Brown to head the list of plaintiffs as a legal strategy.
"The case first went to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, where the defendant argued that segregating children in their school-age years merely helped to prepare them for the harsh realities of the world - i.e. the segregation they would have to deal with in adulthood. While conceding that segregating schools does have a negative impact upon colored children, the U. S. District Court decided that since the Supreme Court had thus far done nothing to negate the precedent set forth by Plessy v. Ferguson, it would be unlawful to rule against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Thus, Oliver Brown and the NAACP lost their case."

Sample of Sources Used:

  • "Brown vs. Board of Education: About the Case." 1996-2004. 22, April 2008. http://brownvboard.org/summary/.
  • Cozzens, Lisa. "Plessy v. Ferguson." 1995. 22, April 2008. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/post-civilwar/plessy.html.
  • Cozzens, Lisa. "Brown v. Board of Education." 1995. 22, April 2008. http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/early-civilrights/brown.html.
  • "News for Educational Workers." Radical Teacher. 46-47
  • Rebell, Michael A. "Equal Opportunity and the Courts." Phi Delta Kappan. 7, February 2008: 432-439.

Cite this Term Paper:

APA Format

The Lasting Impact of "Brown vs. Board of Education" (2011, December 18) Retrieved March 25, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/term-paper/the-lasting-impact-of-brown-vs-board-of-education-149454/

MLA Format

"The Lasting Impact of "Brown vs. Board of Education"" 18 December 2011. Web. 25 March. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/term-paper/the-lasting-impact-of-brown-vs-board-of-education-149454/>

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