Brown vs.
Board of Education
Starting Activity
Agree or Disagree: (left, disagree; right, agree)
Is it unjust (unfair) to take to one court case, but ignore another of
similar circumstances?
Starting Activity (Continued)
Is it justified to be denied the privilege to attend one school and be
required to attend one further away?
The 14th Amendment: A Background
● Granted citizenship to all people that are born in the United States
● Citizenship is described as “equal protection under the laws”
● It was originally passed to abolish slavery and aid Black Americans in
being recognized as equals to white people
How do you think the 14th amendment influenced the Brown v. Board Case?
Who was involved in this case and why?
Linda Brown and her family
● 7 year old Linda Brown and many other black families were
fighting in this battle to allow her to go to a school for better
education
● Their ultimate intention was to put a dent in the mass segregation
spreading over the South
What led up to this event?
● The NAACP encouraged many families to enroll their
children in white schools, only for almost every
family’s request to be denied.
● The Brown family was one of those families; Oliver
Brown signed his daughter up for Sumner Elementary
School (predominately white) but was refused Sumner Elementary School
registration
● She was transferred to an elementary school for black
children which was too far for her to walk on her own
● This event was made up of five different cases, and the
Brown family’s was the fifth and final one.
Where/when did this take place?
● In 1952-1954; Topeka, Kansas
Fun fact: The fifth case in this event was actually retried
December 8, 1953
Briggs V. Elliot
● Clarendon County, South Carolina; December 22, 1950
● After the county denied a black school access to a school bus, African
American families demanded to be able to go to white schools, which
were closer to their homes
● The court ruled against Harold Briggs and 19 other parents.
● The defendant, Elliot, was the school board chairman.
● NAACP attorneys argued that the psychological impact on segregated
students had violated the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th
Amendment.
Davis V. Board of Education of Prince Edward
County
● In 1952, NAACP Attorneys, along with 117 students and parents argued
that the high school for African American students was underfunded and
overcrowded.
● The students were from Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia were
led by Barbara Johns, an 11th grader.
Bolling V. Sharpe
● On September 11, 1950, Gardner Bishop led a group of eleven African
American high schoolers to a new high school in Washington D.C. to ask
if the school would allow the teenagers to attend.
● His request was denied, and he took it to court intending to get at least an
order from the court to build a school for black teens equal to the one that
had denied them. Sadly, they did not win.
● The case was not named after Bishop, but one of the people in the group
that had been with Bishop, Spottswood Thomas Bolling
Gebhart V. Belton
● Howard High School was the only one available to African American
students in the whole state, and black parents wanted their kids to go to
closer schools
● African American children could not ride the bus to school and Sarah
Bulah tried to convince the state to allow her adopted black daughter to
ride, which the state refused
Brown V. Board of Education
● The trial started on December 9, 1952, and ended on May 17, 1954
● The United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public
schools violated the 14th amendment
The “Doll Test”
● A test on young African American students to
demonstrate the negative effect of segregation
on students’ self image.
● Most students defined the brown doll as
“bad”, and associated themselves with the
brown doll.
● NAACP attorneys argued that this violated the
14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
The Aftermath/Impact
● Brown’s case didn’t solve racism; however, it helped bring the situation towards the front
of people’s minds and forced them to confront the racism that ran rampant in society
● Despite all of these steps forward, Southern schools remained almost completely
segregated until the late 1960’s
If you were alive at that time and fully aware of all the racism going on, would you
support the Brown family (publicly or privately)? Why?
Discussion Questions
What would happen if Linda Brown didn’t win the case? If the
case hadn’t happened at all? How would this have impacted our
world today?
Discussion Questions (Continued)
Why did Linda Brown feel it was worth attempting to
equalize the schools (against so much hate and
judgement)? What if she quit before she got where
she was today?
Works Cited
History.com Editors, A&E Television Networks. “Brown v. Board of Education.” History.com, A&E Television
Networks, 27 Oct. 2009, https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka
Eckels, Carla. “A Reflection of History: Brown v. Board Mural Unveiled at Kansas Capitol.” KMUW, 17 May 2018,
https://www.kmuw.org/history/2018-05-17/a-reflection-of-history-brown-v-board-mural-unveiled-at-kansas-capitol.
Duignan, Brian. “Brown v. Board of Education.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 14 Oct.
2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Brown-v-Board-of-Education-of-Topeka
History.com Editors, History.Com. “14th Amendment.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009,
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fourteenth-amendment.
Judicial Branch, United States Courts. “History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-Enactment.” United States
Courts,
https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactmen
t
Works Cited (Continued)
Staff of the National Museum of American History, Behring Center. “Five Communities Change
a Nation - Separate Is Not Equal.” Smithsonian,
https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/4-five/five-communities.html
Williams, Sherda. “Davis v. County School Board.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of
the Interior, 10 Apr. 2015,
https://www.nps.gov/brvb/learn/historyculture/virginia.htm.
