A general introduction analyzes the case's legal precedents and situates the case in the historical context of Jim Crow discrimination and the burgeoning development of the NAACP. Photographs, a collection of political cartoons, a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index are also included.
2004 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision to end segregation in public schools. Many people were elated when Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in May 1954, the ruling that struck down state-sponsored racial segregation in America's public schools. Thurgood Marshall, chief attorney for the black families that launched the litigation, exclaimed later, "I was so happy, I was numb." The novelist Ralph Ellison wrote, "another battle of the Civil War has been won. The rest is up to us and I'm very glad. What a wonderful world of possibilities are unfolded for the children!" Here, in a concise, moving narrative, Bancroft Prize-winning historian James T. Patterson takes readers through the dramatic case and its fifty-year aftermath. A wide range of characters animates the story, from the little-known African Americans who dared to challenge Jim Crow with lawsuits (at great personal cost); to Thurgood Marshall, who later became a Justice himself; to Earl Warren, who shepherded a fractured Court to a unanimous decision. Others include segregationist politicians like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas; Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson, and Nixon; and controversial Supreme Court justices such as William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas. Most Americans still see Brown as a triumph--but was it? Patterson shrewdly explores the provocative questions that still swirl around the case. Could the Court--or President Eisenhower--have done more to ensure compliance with Brown? Did the decision touch off the modern civil rights movement? How useful are court-ordered busing and affirmative action against racial segregation? To what extent has racial mixing affected the academic achievement of black children? Where indeed do we go from here to realize the expectations of Marshall, Ellison, and others in 1954?
Informs readers about Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, segregation in public schools, those involved in the case, and the law applied after the ruling, the fourteenth amendment.
Thurgood Marshall turned a law school rejection based on his race into a passion for ending our nations policy of separate but equal. He was on the legal team that won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case and used that victory as a precedent to topple other racial barriers. He furthered racial reforms after being named our nations first black Supreme Court justice.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas (1954) was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in the twentieth century. It overturned the Court's earlier ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), declaring the establishment of separate public schools for black and white students, as inherently unequal. This victory paved the way for integration in public schools and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The Promise of Justice: Essays on Brown v. Board of Education assembles fourteen essays about Brown and its consequences in the fifty years following the decision. Several of the essayists in this anthology provide personal recollections of the conditions before and immediately after the decision in Brown. One of the authors was a child plaintiff in a related case. Another was the federal district judge responsible for deciding in favor of, and then overseeing, integration in a major northern city. Contributors to this volume include legal specialists, sociologists, educators, and political scientists. A history of the legal milestones of integration is included, as well as judgments about the progress that has been made and the need for additional actions to assure racial equality under the law. Ten of these essays first appeared in a special issue of The Negro Educational Review published in January 2005, and four were written expressly for this volume.
A Harvard Law School professor examines the impact that Brown v. Board of Education has had on his family, citing historical figures, while revealing how the reforms promised by the case were systematically undermined.
Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legally sanctioned segregation in American public schools, brought issues of racial equality to the forefront of the nation’s attention. Beyond its repercussions for the educational system, the decision also heralded broad changes to concepts of justice and national identity. “Brown v. Board” and the Transformation of American Culture examines the prominent cultural figures who taught the country how to embrace new values and ideas of citizenship in the aftermath of this groundbreaking decision. Through the lens of three cultural “first responders,” Ben Keppel tracks the creation of an American culture in which race, class, and ethnicity could cease to imply an inferior form of citizenship. Psychiatrist and social critic Robert Coles, in his Pulitzer Prize–winning studies of children and schools in desegregating regions of the country, helped citizens understand the value of the project of racial equality in the lives of regular families, both white and black. Comedian Bill Cosby leveraged his success with gentle, family-centric humor to create televised spaces that challenged the idea of whiteness as the cultural default. Public television producer Joan Ganz Cooney designed programs like Sesame Street that extended educational opportunities to impoverished children, while offering a new vision of urban life in which diverse populations coexisted in an atmosphere of harmony and mutual support. Together, the work of these pioneering figures provided new codes of conduct and guided America through the growing pains of becoming a truly pluralistic nation. In this cultural history of the impact of Brown v. Board, Keppel paints a vivid picture of a society at once eager for and resistant to the changes ushered in by this pivotal decision.
An awe-inspiring autobiographical picture book about a young African American girl who lived during the shutdown of public schools in Farmville, Virginia, following the landmark civil rights case Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. Most people think that the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954 meant that schools were integrated with deliberate speed. But the children of Prince Edward County located in Farmville, Virginia, who were prohibited from attending formal schools for five years knew differently, including Yolanda. Told by Yolanda Gladden herself, cowritten by Dr. Tamara Pizzoli and with illustrations by Keisha Morris, When the Schools Shut Down is a true account of the unconstitutional effort by white lawmakers of this small Virginia town to circumvent racial justice by denying an entire generation of children an education. Most importantly, it is a story of how one community triumphed together, despite the shutdown.