Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. definition of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. Linda Brown was denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka because she was black. When, combined with several other cases, her suit reached the Supreme Court, that body, in an opinion by recently appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren Warren, Earl, 1891–1974, American public official and 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953–69), b. Los Angeles. He graduated from the Univ. of California Law School in 1912. Admitted (1914) to the bar, he practiced in Oakland, Calif.
..... Click the link for more information. , broke with long tradition and unanimously overruled the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson Plessy v. Ferguson, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1896. The court upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad carriages, ruling that the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth amendment to the U.S.
..... Click the link for more information. , holding for the first time that de jure segregation in the public schools violated the principle of equal protection under the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Responding to legal and sociological arguments presented by NAACP lawyers led by Thurgood Marshall Marshall, Thurgood, 1908–93, U.S. lawyer and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967–91), b. Baltimore. He received his law degree from Howard Univ. in 1933.
..... Click the link for more information. , the court stressed that the "badge of inferiority" stamped on minority children by segregation hindered their full development no matter how "equal" physical facilities might be. After hearing further arguments on implementation, the court declared in 1955 that schools must be desegregated "with all deliberate speed."

Restricted in application to de jure (legally imposed) segregation, the Brown rule was applied mainly to Southern school systems. After strong resistance, which led to such incidents as the 1957 Little Rock Little Rock, city (1990 pop. 175,795), state capital and seat of Pulaski co., central Ark., on the Arkansas River; inc. 1831. It is a river port and the administrative, commercial, transportation, and cultural center of the state.
..... Click the link for more information. , Ark., school crisis, integration spread slowly across the South, under court orders and the threat of loss of federal funds for noncompliance. The Brown decision gave tremendous impetus to the civil-rights civil rights, rights that a nation's inhabitants enjoy by law. The term is broader than "political rights," which refer only to rights devolving from the franchise and are held usually only by a citizen, and unlike "natural rights," civil rights have a legal as well
..... Click the link for more information. movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and hastened integration in public facilities and accommodations. Segregation maintained by more subtle and intractable forces, however, has remained an important element in American society. De facto school segregation, caused by residential housing patterns and various other conditions rather than by law, has been attacked by the busing of students and other mechanisms. The landmark decision is commemorated by the

Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka (see National Parks and Monuments National Parks and Monuments

National Parks
Name Type¹ Location Year authorized Size

acres (hectares)

Description
Acadia NP SE Maine 1919 48,419 (19,603) Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information. , table).

Bibliography

See study by J. T. Pattterson (2001).