LAD #37: Brown vs. Board of Education; Topeka, Kansas

Instead of little Linda Brown walking a mile to school everyday she wanted to walk just seven blocks from her house to attend the all white elementary school. She was denied, because of race, and her father Oliver Brown plus 13 other parents took this issue to court.  Brown argued that black schools received only a third of the funding as white schools. "They did not have the most current textbooks, not enough school supplies, and overcrowded classrooms." Yet, the court room, dominated by whites, referred to the Plessy v. Ferguson in which the doctrine of separate but equal had been defended. The NAACP would not be defeated easily and decided to appeal the case to the supreme court on October 1, 1951. The Browns argued that black children attended black schools in order to keep them different from everyone else. The case continued for several months. However, after one of the justices, the case had to basically begin once again. Finally, after two years, the ruling was made in favor of the Browns; segregation of schools was outlawed. Tensions between blacks and whites ensued for some time, however, making the path to segregation a rather grueling one