Brown v Board of Education Topeka Kansas (1954)

Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Key words :
• Supreme court
• Landmark case
• Civil rights movement
• Dissent
• School segregation
• Earl Warren
• Thurgood Marshall
• Separate but equal doctrine,
Plessy v. Ferguson
• 13 th and 14th amendment
• Jim Crow laws
• Civil rights movement
• NAACP
Outline :
1. 14th amendment (1868) : guaranteed equal protection under the law, guaranteed civil
rights but the amendment has been interpreted in contradictory ways—to legislate both
segregation and integration
2. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): decision that legalized the practices of “separate but equal”.
In the Plessy decision, the 14th Amendment was interpreted in such a way that equality
in the law could be met through segregated facilities.
3. Jim Crow laws were passed throughout the South and they established separate
facilities for Blacks and Whites in everything from schools to restrooms, drinking
fountains to witness stands in courtrooms.
4. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954): This Supreme Court decision
has been credited with much significance. For some, it signaled the start of the civil
rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, while for others, it represented the fall of
segregation. The Brown decision established that separate schools were ipso facto
unequal.
I. Discussion:
1. What do you think segregated schools were like in pre-1954 America?
2. In what parts of the country were schools segregated?
3. How was the experience of a black student in public school different from that of a
white student?
4. Are schools in your country segregated ? In what ways ?
5. What could you do to work against that segregation, bringing more integration to
your school?
6. Do you think that racial segregation in public school hurts the separated races,
assuming the schools are “equal” in terms of facilities, class size, teacher pay, etc?
7. Is the harm greater for one race than for the other?
8. Many schools in the USA today are virtually all white or all-minority, even though no
law requires segregation. This is sometimes called “de facto segregation.” Do you
think de facto segregation has a detrimental effect on students?
II. Plessy v. Ferguson - 1896:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_plessy.html
1

On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the
East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was
considered black despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored"
car. He was a Creole of Color, a term used to refer to black persons in New Orleans who
traced some of their ancestors to the French, Spanish, and Caribbean settlers of Louisiana
before it became part of the United States. When Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act,
legally segregating common carriers in 1892, a black civil rights organization decided to
challenge the law in the courts. Plessy deliberately sat in the white section and identified
himself as black. He was arrested and the case went all the way to the United States
Supreme Court. Plessy's lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the
United States heard the case and held the Louisiana segregation statute constitutional.
Speaking for a seven-man majority, Justice Henry Brown wrote:
"A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored
races -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. ... The object
of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of
the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been
intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as
distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms
unsatisfactory to either."
Justice John Harlan, the lone dissenter, saw the horrific consequences of the decision.
"Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among
citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. ... The present
decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or
less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will
encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the
beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they
adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution."
The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were
constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly
extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and
public schools. The doctrine was a fiction, as facilities for blacks were always inferior to
those for whites. Not until 1954, in the equally important Brown v. Board of Education of
Topeka, would the "separate but equal" doctrine be struck down.
• Translate into French:
Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was considered black
despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car.
• Match the words in bold with the definitions below:
a. the person who disagrees with a majority decision:
b. its Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection
under the law to all people:
c. to dispute the constitutionality of a law:
d. to establish a rule for subsequent similar cases
e. on purpose:
f. declared the law illegal :
g. it officially abolished slavery:
h. confirmed the constitutionality of the written law:
i. laws passed by a state
j. racial policy by which blacks may be segregated if they are granted equal
facilities in education, transportation, etc…
2

III. Listening:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1537409
NPR, The Supreme Court and 'Brown v. Board of Ed.', by Nina Totenberg. Dec 3, 2004
50 years ago today, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in what would become
perhaps the ______________ Supreme Court decision of the 20 th century. Before the justices
on Dec. 8 th , 1953, were ___________ school desegregation cases. The lead off case bore the
name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
With its companion cases, Brown would reverse the course of legal history for civil rights.
Today NPR begins a series of reports, that over the coming month will examine this decision
and how, half a century later, the nation continues to struggle with ___________ of race and
education. We begin this week with NPR legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, and a
3 part examination of the inner workings of the Supreme Court as the ______________ made
their decision.
Almost from the moment the civil war ended and Congress ___________ the 14 th
Amendment _____________ racial equality, the Supreme Court began backtracking. Just
how much equality were the newly freed slaves _____________ to? By 1896, the Court, in a
case called Plessy v Ferguson, had ______________ the concept of racial segregation.
Separate but equal _______________ the court said, met the 14 th Amendment’s demand for
equal protection of the law. In case after _________________ case however, the Court was
willing to tolerate facilities that anyone could see were unequal. By the 1930s, African
Americans had had enough. And the _________________ set out to fulfill the 14 th
Amendment __________________. The civil rights organization set its sight on the public
schools. In the beginning the __________________ was to graduate schools, and in
_________________, the Supreme Court _______________ that the State of Missouri had to
admit a black student to its white Law School because there was no state law school for
blacks. In 1950, the court ruled that Texas had to admit blacks to the State all white Law
school because the black school did not have a comparable library, ______________ or
prestige. And in a case from Oklahoma, where the court had ordered the admission of a
black student into the Law School, the Court said that blacks could not be segregated in the
classroom, the ______________ and the cafeteria. The man orchestrating the legal
_________________ for the NAACP was Thurgood Marshall, the son of a railroad dining car
waiter and a schoolteacher. Raised in segregated Baltimore, Marshall assembled a legal
____________ of black and white ______________ for the _______________ on segregation.
Many on the team would later become _____________ themselves, Marshall would become
the nation’s first black Supreme Court ______________, but in these crucial years, Marshall
was an outsider and a legal ___________________.
• Find in the text the words and expression that mean in French:
a. Une decision historique
b. Les rouages
c. Faire marche arrière
d. Nouvellement libres, libérés
e. Satisfaire une exigence
f. Ils en ont eu assez
g. Le personnel enseignant
IV. Video:
3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTGHLdr-iak
1. By the early 1950s, segregation was
a. stronger
b. weaker
c. universal
d. illegal
2. In the early 1950s, schools were
a. desegregated
b. mostly segregated
c. not an issue in the racial debate
d. not accessible to black children
3. Southerners were afraid that desegregation would cause
a. mixed marriages
b. the closing of schools
c. too much dating
d. a political revolution
4. Thurgood Marshall was a
a. lawyer for the NAACP
b. judge in the Brown case
c. black student denied access to a white school
d. Supreme Court justice
5. Brown v. Board of Education is in fact a consolidation of _____ cases.
a. 2
b. 3
c. 4
d. 5
6. John W. Davis was
a. a NAACP lawyer
b. the lawyer defending the Board of Education
c. the president of the USA
d. an adversary to racial segregation
7. The ‘separate but equal’ doctrine states that
a. there is no inherent equality between black and white
b. separate facilities are legal as long as they are “equal”
c. no state can decide on the matter of segregation
d. segregation is illegal because all citizens are equal under the law
8. How many justices are there at the Supreme Court?
a. 6
b. 7
c. 8
d. 9
9. Earl Warren was a
a. a dissenting justice
b. a recent nominee at the Supreme Court
c. a famous black lawyer
d. a student in Topeka, Kansas
10. This is an extract from the Supreme Court opinion, please fill in the blanks:
We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "_______________
but equal" has no place. Separate educational ___________________ are inherently
unequal. Therefore, we __________________ hold that the ______________ are
4

deprived of the equal protection of the laws _____________ by the
___________________ Amendment.
11. Robert L Carter was
a. a black student
b. a Supreme Court Justice
c. the plaintiff’s lawyer
d. the defense lawyer
12. Vernon Jordan explains that, after the decision, he
a. received a new geometry book and a new tuba
b. could apply to any school he chose
c. could no longer play in the high school band
d. had to go to Georgia Tech
He says: “In 1951, I had used plain geometry books that had been used by white students
in 1935. Brown said that that was over. The hand me down tubas that I played in the high
school band from the white high schools; it said to me that that was ended. And it said to
me that at some point, I would not have to travel from Atlanta to Greencastle, Indiana to get
an undergraduate degree, that my family, my cousins, my neighbors could go to Georgia
Tech or the University of Georgia. The Supreme Court decision of 1954 was to me the
Magna Carta, it was the second emancipation”.
Magna Carta, 1297: it widely viewed as the most important document in the history
of democracy. It guaranteed among other things the right to due process which led
to trial by jury.
V. Brown v. Board of Education – 1954:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_brown.html
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in
public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no
state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. The 1954
decision declared that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. Following a
series of Supreme Court cases argued between 1938 and 1950 that chipped away at
legalized segregation, Brown v. Board of Education reversed an earlier Supreme Court
ruling (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896) that permitted "separate but equal" public facilities. The
1954 decision was limited to the public schools, but it was believed to imply that
segregation was not permissible in other public facilities. The key phrase in the ruling
delivered by Chief Justice Earl Warren was as follows:
"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect
upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law,
for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority
of the Negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn.
Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the
educational and mental development of Negro children and to deprive them of some
of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system. ... We
conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of "separate but equal"
has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
Brown v. Board received its name from the lawsuit brought by the parents of eight-year-old
Linda Brown, who had to travel a great distance to attend grade school while white children
went to a school a few blocks away. The NAACP brought suit on behalf of her parents to
admit her to her neighborhood school. The Brown case was one of a total of five cases
charging that segregation in education was a violation of the equal protection of the laws
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They included Briggs v. Elliot at al. (South Carolina)
Davis at al. V. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia); Gebhart et al. V.
Benton (Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia). Four of the cases were
5

ought by the National Association For the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and
were argued before the Supreme Court by Thurgood Marshall. Marshall would later become
the first black justice on the Supreme Court.
• Translate into French:
Brown v. Board received its name from the lawsuit brought by the parents of eight-yearold
Linda Brown, who had to travel a great distance to attend grade school while white
children went to a school a few blocks away. The NAACP brought suit on behalf of her
parents to admit her to her neighborhood school.
• Translate into French:
a. Educational facilities
b. Therefore
c. A justice
• Match the words in bold with the definitions below:
a. to refuse
b. to decide judicially
c. alleging
d. gradually made it less effective
e. a legal action
f. in essence
g. brought an action
h. in the interest of
VI. Segregation Today : 55 years after Brown v. Board of Education
• Listen to the recording and fill in the blanks:
De Facto School Segregation Growing, Study Says. WBUR, January 24, 2006.
http://www.wbur.org/npr/5169990/de-facto-school-segregation-growing-study-says
ED GORDON, host: From NPR News, this is NEW AND NOTES. I'm Ed Gordon,
1. A recent Associated Press Ipsos Poll found that 78 ________________ of white Americans
and 66 percent of black Americans agree we're _____________ than ever to Dr. King's dream
of racial equality. But a new study ________________ by Harvard University's Civil Rights
Project suggests, when it comes to public education, we still have a ways to go. America's
schools are more segregated than they were _________ years ago, and some districts are so
segregated, that they have what the study calls ______________ schools. For more on that
report, I sat down with Gary Orfield, professor of education and director of Harvard's Civil
Rights Project, and John Brittain, chief counsel and senior deputy for the Lawyers'
________________ for Civil Rights Under Law.
2. Mr. Brittain says, our judicial system ____________ credit for ordering desegregation in its
_______________ 1954 Brown v. Board decision, but also blamed for failing to keep the
_________________ of that ruling today.
3. Mr. JOHN BRITTAIN (Chief Counsel and Senior Deputy, Lawyers' Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law): I don't think we went wrong. I think the court __________ the door to
school integration. They've become much more ________________; they require intent; they
impose large burdens; and the federal government, particularly the Department of
Education, that once was a _________________ of school integration, how now
6

__________________ the effort. Furthermore, to let school districts build schools in black and
Latino neighborhoods _______________ segregation with state full funding and they let
predominantly white schools renovate and build new schools in the suburbs that also
maintains desegregation. So, our laws have failed and our ___________________ actors have
failed.
4. Mr. GARY ORFIELD (Professor of Education and Director of Civil Rights Project, Harvard
University): You also see that this line has been _______________ between city and suburb,
as if we were two different civilizations. Once you get an overwhelmingly minority city, the
Supreme Court basically says you can't do anything about the problem ____________ you
can find the state constitutional right or something like that, even though it would be a very
feasible and ___________ solution.
5. GORDON: What of those who will suggest, Professor, that it's simply a failed experiment
to force people to go to school together was the mistake that we really should have
_____________ for, even if it were separate but equal, a sheer equation that gave equal
dollars to equal systems.
6. Professor ORFIELD: So far as I can tell, there's no school district that's ever ____________
separate but equal schools on any significant __________; and that's because, as our
____________ shows, in more than three-quarters of the cases, segregated minority schools
have concentrated ____________. Putting money into those schools without changing
_____________, without changing teachers, without changing _______________, without
changing levels of competition, connections to college and so forth, just doesn't make them
equal. You could put money into your local community college, a lot of it, and it wouldn't be
Harvard, because you wouldn't have the students and the faculty, the connections, the
______________, and so forth.
7. Everyone who is in favor of school integration, is also in favor of trying to do everything
possible to equalize city schools, so far as I know; and they're not contrary things. They
both need to be done because there's no desegregation ____________ that's going to
accomplish everything in any short period of time. Separate but equal isn't really possible
on any scale in a society where almost everything is related to race in quite powerful ways.
• Please find in the script the words or expressions that mean the same as:
a. A lot of work to do or improvements to make (paragraph 1)
b. To be owed recognition for doing something (2)
c. To find fault with (2)
d. A person who defends a cause (3)
e. To give up (3)
f. Capable of being done, accomplished (4)
g. Individual facts, statistics, items of information (6)
7