Brown v. Board of Education

Essay by timo99High School, 11th gradeA+, May 2004

download word file, 1 pages 2.0 1 reviews

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark court case of 1954 in which the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously declared that it was unconstitutional to create separate schools for children on the basis of race. The Brown ruling ranks as one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century. At the time of the decision, 17 southern states and the District of Columbia required that all public schools be racially segregated. A few northern and western states, including Kansas, left the issue of segregation up to individual school districts. While most schools in Kansas were integrated in 1954, those in Topeka were not. The question before the court was "Was segregated education unconstitutional?" In the first half of his opinion, Warren did not answer that question, and he gave no hint of the decision the court would make. Reading the opinion in a courtroom packed with news reporters, he simply explained the facts of the cases before him and the history of the American doctrine of "separate but equal."