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Equality

What if I started to remove all the blacks and non-whites from the room? You may think that I am crazy, or even ponder why I would do that? The story of Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legal segregation in public schools, is one of hope and courage. When the people agreed to be plaintiffs in the case, they never knew they would change history. The people who make up this story were ordinary people. They were teachers, secretaries, welders, ministers and students who simply wanted to be treated equally. In the early 1950's, racial segregation in public schools was the norm across America. Although all the schools in a given district were supposed to be equal, most black schools were far inferior to their white counterparts. The landmark Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) settled the question of whether or not blacks and whites can receive an education integrated with or separate from each other. The case overturned the 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the doctrine of "separate but equal." This concept stated that separate public facilities of equal quality do not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which reads: 14th Amendment: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. 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 an eight year old black child who had to cross railroad tracks in Topeka, Kansas to attend grade school, even though a white elementary school was only seven blocks away. Linda's father, Oliver Brown, tried to enroll her in the white elementary school, but the...