GCSE USA Conflict At Home & Abroad - Progress in Education

Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topenka (Brown vs. Topenka), 1954:

14th Amendment = 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'

Linda Brown was a Black student who had to travel miles away to attend school, since she was denied from attending the all-white schools close to her home. Her case was combined with others across the country in 1953 and was brought to the Supreme Court. 

Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer for the NAACP who argued that school segregation violated the 14th Amendment. 

Chief Justice Earl Warren argued that segregation was unconstitutional, and instilled feelings of inferiority into Black Americans even if the conditions of segregated facilities were equal. 

The Supreme Court came to the conclusion that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal and defy the 14th Amendment. 

Consequences of Brown vs. Topenka: POSITIVE, NEGATIVE

• The successful case legally reversed Plessy vs. Ferguson, meaning the ruling could be used in the future to desegregate other places besides schools.
• In 1955, a second Supreme Court case ruled that desegregation should be carried out 'with all deliberate speed'.
• Some Southern states desegregated schools rapidly after the ruling; by 1957, 723 districts had desegregated…