Essay Sample about Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board of Education was a court case created to segregate schools by color. On May 17 of 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren issued the Supreme Court’s united decision of Brown v., declaring racial segregation in public schools. According to Wikipedia, “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that US state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.” Before Brown v. Board of Education, which began in 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was the original landmark court decision started in 1896.

Plessy v. Ferguson was a court case that challenged Louisiana’s Separate Car Act in 1890, which required railway companies to supply a distinguished accommodation to separate whites and colored races. According to ACE (Argument Centered Education), “Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark of the 1896 US Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.” The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in the car for Black people (because he referred to himself as seven-eighths white and one-eighth black). Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme Court ruled that a law that implies a legal distinction between whites and Black people was not unconstitutional.”

While there was a court case before Brown v. Board of Education, there was also one before Plessy v. Ferguson, known as Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott v. Sandford was the original court case of Brown v. Board of Education, stating that the US Supreme Court’s decision ruled that African Americans (whether enslaved or free) were not citizens of the United States and therefore did not have the right to sue in a federal court. There are various reasons why they outlawed Dred Scott v. Sandford. According to PBS, “The dissenting justice pointed out that in some states people of color were already considered citizens when the Constitution was ratified.” In 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment overrode the Dred Scott decision by allowing citizenship to all individuals born in the United States, regardless the color.

In 1954, the court case of Brown v. Board of Education decided that “separate educational resources were essentially unequal,” and it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The ruling overturned Plessy and forced desegregation. The 14th Amendment was the Amendment in the United States Constitution that granted citizenship, equality, and legal rights to African Americans. It enslaved people who had been liberated after the American Civil War. The 14th Amendment was created to give African Americans citizenship and allow all born or established people in the US to become naturalized citizens. By enacting the court case Brown v., the constitution contradicts their own Amendment. 

Brown v. Board was started because of a welder named Oliver Brown. Oliver Brown and other African Americans were denied admission to a public school for white children. This was allowed under the law that accepted discrimination based on race. Brown claimed that minority segregation lacked the First Amendment’s protection. Brown filed a class-action lawsuit empowering Virginia, South Carolina, Delaware, and Kansas against the Kansas Federal District Court. He was later recruited to be part of a Topeka civil rights organization, known as the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and in 1954, the Supreme Court struck down segregation in public schools, starting the Civil Rights movement.

One reason that the constitution ended the Plessy v. Ferguson court case was the outcome. According to U.S. Conlawpedia, “the Plessy v Ferguson trial negatively and culturally affected humanity, creating separate but “equal” rights, challenging the constitution in court, and creating segregation.” Discrimination was the leading cause of segregation. People of one race began to show hatred towards the other. This resulted in the African American race feeling inferior to the other races and kept separate. Causing uprisings for equality and better opportunities. The effects of racial segregation caused children to believe that all people were equal, but in reality, some were more equal than others. 

Low-income black children became more racially and socially isolated then than now. Segregation persists as a critical feature of American schooling. Segregation was the practice of requiring separate housing, education, and other separate resources for people of color. I believe that the brown v. board of education court case was incorrect because it violated the 14th Amendment and lied about granting citizenship to all people born or established in the US. Segregation was where black and white people were separated and treated differently. Things like going to the same restaurants, swimming pools, bathrooms, and more were prohibited. Blacks were treated harshly compared to whites. Because segregation was made a law several times in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, America has made it where blacks and white people were incapable of coexisting. I believe that court case brown v. was wrong because it promoted racial segregation, hatred, and narrow-mindedness across America. The practice was offensive and hateful towards African Americans and violated the human rights and freedom of every individual.