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Brown v. Board of Education Timespan
Brown v. Board of Education
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -
Case - Filing and arguments
In 1951, a class action suit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children.
Read more at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education#Case -
Supreme Court review
The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington D.C.).
All were NAACP-sponsored cases.
Read more at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education#Filing_and_arguments -
Unanimous opinion and consensus building
In spring 1953, the Court heard the case but was unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in fall 1953, with special attention to whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks.
Read more at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education#Unanimous_opinion_and_consensus_building -
Holding
Reporters who observed the court holding were surprised by two facts. First, the court made a unanimous decision. Prior to the ruling, there were reports that the court members were sharply divided and might not be able to agree. Second, the attendance of Justice Robert H. Jackson who had suffered a mild heart attack and was not expected to return to the bench until early June 1954.
Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education#Holding -
Background
This policy had been endorsed in 1896 by the United States Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that as long as the separate facilities for the separate races were equal, segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment ("no State shall ... deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws") .
Read more at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education